A wife's tragedy : a novel

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of the
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4

WIFE'S TRAGEDY

BY

MAY AGNES FLEMIJNG,

AUTHOR OP

A MAD MARRIAGE," " A WONDERFUL WOMAN.
GUY EARLSCOURT's WIFE," ONE NIGHT's MYSTERY,"
"a TERRIBLE SECRET," "LOST FOR A WOMAN,"
ETC., ETC., ETC.

*' For auglit that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth."

Shakespeare's Mid. Night's Dream.

TORONTO :

HOSE-BELFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY.

MDCCCLXXXI.

OOl^TEl^TS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Arthur Sutherland 5

II. Eulalie 18

III. Beginning of the Trouble 32

IV. Battling with Fate 45

V. Fate's Victory 56

VI. Told in the Twilight 68

VII. Struck by Lightning 79

VIII. Taken Away 92

IX. " Come what Will, I have been Blessed." 104

X. The Lull before the Storm 112

XL At the Concert 122

XII. Mr. Gaston Benoir 133

XIII. Mr. Benoir's Letter 141

XIV. Mr. Benoir's Shadow 149

XV. Rebecca, the housemaid 160

XVI. A little Tangle in Mr. Benoir's Web 169

XVII. On the Scent 181

XVIII. Brought to a Beckoning 196

XIX. At the Summer-house 206

XX. Confidential 216

vi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER t-AGE

XXI. Mr. Benoir's Dilemma 225

XXII. Deepening Mystery 239

XXIII. Eulalie's Flight 253

XXIV. After the Inquest 261

XXV. Dark Days 273

XXVI. Found and Lost 284

XXVII. After Eight Years 290

A WIFE'S TRAGEDY.

»♦«

CHAPTER I.

ARTHUR SUTHERLAND.

MR. ARTHUR SUTHERLAND sat by the open win-
dow of his room, in the Metropolitan, smoking a
cigar and watching the ceaseless tide of humanity ebbing
and flowing on Broadway. Three o'clock, and a sunshiny
May afternoon — silks and satins and beautiful faces sweep-
ing down to meet dress coats, and switch canes, and mous-
tached faces, sauntering up. An organ-grinder, right
below, was playing a lively air, and it seemed to Arthur
Sutherland that the men and women were keeping time
to his music, walking through the great quadrille of life.
For what is it all, this ceaseless gliding in and out, bow-
ing and dipping, and forward and back, but a mighty
quadrille that we dance every day, with the music in our
own hearts, whether that music be a jubilate or a dead
march.

Arthur Sutherland sat and watched the evershifting
panorama, with a face as serene as the bright May day.
Why not ? He was young, and handsome, and rich, just
returned from making the grand continental tour, and
disposed to^think there was no place like home after all.
A

6

A wife's TRAaEDY.

Young, and handsome, and rich ; surely ail that the world
can give of happiness is contained in these three words ;
and Arthur Sutherland was happy — very happy, indeed,
this pleasant May afternoon. This bright little world of
ours looked very much to him as Eden must have done to
Adam on the first day of his life, and Eve — yes, Eve was
up-town, in a brown-stone front, and only waiting the
word to make him blessed for life.
There was a tap at his door.

" Come in," said Mr. Sutherland, without looking round ;
and some one obeyed and crossed the room, and struck
him lightly on the shoulder with a kid-gloved hand. Mr.
Sutherland turned round to see — not the waiter he had
expected, but a gentlemanly young man, elaborately
attired, faultless, from the toes of his shiny boots to the
crown of his silk hat.

" Why, Phil., old fellow, is it you ? " said Arthur Suther-
land, grasping both his visitor's hands. " Here's a sur-
prise ! Where in the world did you come from ? "

" Where did I come from ? " exclaimed Mr. Sutherland's
visitor, taking a seat after a prolonged shake-hands. " I
think it is I who should ask that question ! Where do
you come from and what do you mean by being in New
York a whole week and not informing your friends ? "

" How should I know my friends were here ? What
are you doing in New York ? Practising your profes
sion ? "

" When I get any practising to do ; but the people who
know me are so confoundedly healthy, and the people
who don't know me won t employ me ; so, between both,
I am in a state of genteel beggary. I wish," said Mr.
Sutherland's visitor, vindictively, " the spotted plague, or
the yellow-fever, or the small-pox, would break out ! A
man might have some chance of living then."

" He would stand more chance of dying, I should think,"
said Arthur Sutherland, smiling. "Why don't you go
down to St, Mary's, and hang out your shingle there ?

iRTHUR SUTHERLAND.

7

This big citj is surfeited with ambitious young doctors
and well established old ones. Phj^sicians are few and
far between and old-fogyish in St. Mary's, and the people
know you there."

" For which very reason/' said the young doctor, deject-
edly, " they wouldn't employ me. Do you suppose the
men and women who knew little Phil. Sutherland when
he wore petticoats, and got spankings, would employ Dr.
Philip Sutherland to drag out their double teeth, or cure
their colics or rheumatisms. No ; I might blue-mould in
the grass-grown streets of St.Mary's before I sold sixpence
worth of physic."

Arthur Sutherland laughed. There is no joke so good
as the misfortunes of our friends, when we are beyond
misfortune's reach ourselves. They were distant cousins,
these young men, bearing the same good old English
name ; but there, all resemblance between them ended,
Arthur Sutherland was rich ; Philip Sutherland was poor.
Arthur had a mother and sister, and a home ; Philip had
no nearer kindred than this distant cousin, and no home
but in swarming boarding-houses. He had been M.D. for
about half a year, and found it terribly up-hill work.

All a chap can make," said Dr. Sutherland, moodily,
" won't pay his board, and keep him in paper collars and
cigars. As for the theatre, or paying tailors, or boot-
makers, that's out of the question. If they would take
payment in blue-pills and castor-oil, or blistering, or any-
thing professional, I might manage somehow ; but they
won't. Tailors and bootmakers never seem to be sick, or
have their teeth drawn ; or, if they do, they won't come
to me ! I wish I had taken to tailoring myself — it's
money-making, and it's handy to be able to make your
own coat and pantaloons. I have a strong mind, as it is,
to throw physic to the dogs, and take to the needle and
goose."

" It's a harrowing case, certainly," said Arthur, laugh-
ing; "but don't disgrace the name of Sutherland yet.

8

A wife's tkagedy.

You know my poor mother's proudest boast is, thete
never yet was a Sutherland in trade. Stick to the scal-
pel and lancet, dear boy, and marry an heiress ! "

" That's easier said than done," Doctor Sutherland re-
plied, more moodily still. "I'd marry an heiress fast
enough if I could find one to have me, let her be ugly as a
Hottentot. But I never knew one heiress to speak to ;
and if I did, she would treat me like the rest. She would
sail past me with upturned nose, and plump into the
arms of some fellow like yourself, with more money al-
ready than you know what to do with. Marry an heiress !
I wish to Heaven I had the chance ! "

" I suppose it is only in novels that millionaires' daugh-
ters elope with grooms and fortunes," said Arthur ; " and
yet there ought to be heiresses in New York in these
days of commercial fortune-making; and you are not
such a bad-looking fellow in the main, Phil ! Hope on,
hope ever, my boy ! there is no telling what is in store for
you yet."

" Yes, there is the poorhouse," Dr. Sutherland replied,
gloomily ; " unless I take to street sweeping or some other
useful avocation to prevent it. I think I'll emigrate to
Mexico or Havana ; they're nice unhealthy places in hot
weather, and doctors ought to thrive there. And, by the
bye, speaking of Havana," said Phil. Sutherland, rousing
himself from his state of despondency, " are you aware
your mother and sister spent January and February there
this year ? "

" Yes, certainly. My mother wrote me from there, and
went into rhapsodies over the beauties of Eden Lawn and
its mistress. I was in Switzerland at the time, among
the ice and snow, and it was rather odd to read that the
weather was oppressively warm."

" Your mother liked it," said Phil., " but your sister
Gusty didn't. You ought to hear her abusing the place
and the people, the heat and the mosquitoes, the church-
going bareheaded, and the two meals per day."

ARTHUR SUTHERLAND.

9

"Poor little girl! "Arthur said, smiling; "two meals
per day I knew would not suit her. Who were the
people, and how did my good mother make their ac-
quaintance ? "

" It was at Montreal. You know your mother sent
Augusta to the Convent of the Sacred Heart there, to be
finished."

Arthur nodded.

" Well, among the pupils there it seems was a lovely
young Creole, Mademoiselle Eulalie Rohan, Euglish on
the paternal side, French on the maternal, fabulously
beautiful, and fabulously wealthy. Your mother saw
her, and was enraptured. The liking, it appears, was
mutual ; for a pressing invitation followed from the young
lady and her grandfather to spend the winter in Cuba ;
which invitation was accepted, Gusty told me in a letter,
only on condition that Mr. and Miss Rohan should spend
the ensuing summer at Maplewood."

Arthur Sutherland looked surprised.

" Indeed ! I was not aware of that. Has Mademoi-
selle no relative but grandfather ? "

" Not one, it appears. She has been an orphan from
her earliest childhood, and this old grandfather idolizes
her. Her fortune is beyond computation. Gusty says.
There is a princely estate in South America, another
princely estate in Louisiana, and still another in Cuba.
Except the Rothschilds, Mr. Rohan and his pretty grand-
daughter are about the richest people in this lower
world."

Arthur Sutherland's small white hand fell lightly on
his cousin's shoulder, and his blue eyes lit up mischie-
vously.

" My dear fellow, the very thing. Nothing could fall
out better. This heiress of fabulous wealth and beauty
is to spend the summer at Maplewood. Dr. Phil. Suth-
erland, young and good-looking and fascinating, shall

10

A wife's tragedy.

spend the summer at Maple wood also. The beautiful
heiress and the fascinating physician will be perpetually-
thrown together — riding, driving, walking, sailing. The
result is apparent to the dullest comprehension. Dr.
Sutherland will leave Maplewood a married man and a
millionaire."

" Nothing of the sort," said Dr. Sutherland, in a hope-
less tone, as he lit a cigar ; " no such luck for me ! It is
for my dear cousin Arthur this golden trap is baited.
You know the old proverb, ' He that has a goose will get
a goose.' "

" For me ! Nonsense, Phil."

" Is it nonsense ? It is a wonderful woman, that
stately mamma of yours, old boy ; and this gold-bullion
heiress is for her Arthur — her only one, and nobody
else."

" Then my stately mamma will have her trouble for
her pains," said Arthur Sutherland, coolly ; " I have no
fancy for gold-bullion heiresses, or for having the future
Mrs. S. selected for me in this right royal fashion. No
more have I for swarthy skins or tornado-tempered
Creoles."

" No," said Phil., pufl&ng away energetically. " No ;
you like pink cheeks, alabaster brows, and pale auburn
ringlets. Miss Isabella Yansell is a very pretty girl."

Arthur Sutherland tried to look unconscious, but it
would not do. The slight flush that reddened his hand-
some face ended in a laugh.

" There you go again, talking more nonsense ! It is a
lovely afternoon," said Mr. Sutherland, awakening sud-
denly to the fact ; " suppose we take a stroll down
Broadway."

" With all my heart. But, first, when is it to be ? "
" When is what to be ? "

" The wedding of Arthur Sutherland, Esquire, of Maple-
wood, Maine, to Miss Isabella Yansell, of Nev^ York
City."

ARTHUR SUTHERLAND.

11

" As if I would put you au fait of my love-matters ! "
said Arthur, drawing on his gloves. "Who has been
talking to you of Miss Yansell ? "

" Oh, I happen to know the lady. She blushed beauti-
fully yesterday when she asked me if I had seen my
cousin, Mr. Sutherland, since his return to New York.
Didn't I stare ! It was the first intimation I had of your
return."

" Which proves you don't read the papers ; my return
was duly chronicled."

" And so you really won't marry the heiress ? "

" I really won't."

" But you have not seen her."

" That makes not the slightest difference."

" And they say she is beautiful."

" All the better ! I should like my cousin Phil, to have
a handsome wife. The Sutherlands always marry pretty
women."

" Humph ! " muttered Dr. Phil, flinging his cigar out of
the window, and rising to go ; " and when is the fair-
haired Isabel to reign queen of old Maplewood ? "

" I haven't asked her that," replied Arthur ; " when I
do, I will let you know. Now, drop the subject. Here
we are on the pav^."

The two young men sauntered away, arm-in-arm, and
made a very protracted stroll of it.^ They had been boys
together, and had passed through college together, and
they had not seen each other for three years ; so they
found enough to talk about. They dined together some
hours later, and afterward strolled into a fashionable
theatre to see the melancholy Prince of Denmark and his
love-sick Ophelia. And, when that was over, Arthur
Sutherland went back to the Metropolitan, and Philip
Sutherland returned to his east-side boarding-house.

The gas was burning low in Arthur Sutherland's room
when he entered it, and in the obscurity he saw a white
patch on the crimson tablecloth — a letter. He turned up

12

A wife's tragedy.

the light and looked at it. The address was written in a
delicate Italian running-hand, and the envelope smelt
like a jessamine blossom.

" From my mother," thought the young man. " She
reads the papers, if Phil, does not. * Arthur Sutherland,
Esquire, Metropolitan Hotel, New York.' Exactly ! Let
us see what it says inside."

He opened the envelope with care, and drew out four
sheets of fine pink paper, closely written and crossed.
There was a fifth sheet, much smaller, and in a different '
hand — careless and sprawling, and a trifle blotted. The
young man smiled, as he laid it down to read his mother's
first.

" Poor little Gusty ! " he thought. " That big slapdash-
fist and these blots are so like you ! If you ever write
love-letters, I hope you will have an open grammar and
dictionary before you ; for your spelling and composition
would send Lindlay Murray and John Walker into fits.
The nuns of the Sacred Heart may be very accomplished
ladies, but they haven't succeeded in drilling spelling and
grammar into the head of my only sister."

Mrs. Sutherland's letter, dated Maplewood, was very
long, very afiectionate, and very entertaining. Her
delight was boundless to know her darling was at home
again ; her impatience indescribable to behold him. She
and Augusta were well and happy. Maplewood was look-
ing lovely this charming May-weather, and Mr. and Miss
Eohan were enraptured with it. And from this point all
Mrs. Sutherland's letter was taken up in singing the
praises of Miss Eulalie Rohan — her fascination, her grace,
her wealth ; above all, her inconceivable beauty. Mrs.
Sutherland could find no words strong enough to tell her
son her admiration of this young lady.

Her son took it very coolly, lying back in his arm-chair,
and smoking as he read. When he read the finishing
sentence — a strong appeal, that sounded like a command,
to come home immediately, and immediately was under-
lii^ed twice^he laid it down, an(} took up the o^her.

ARTHUR SUTHERLAND.

13

" Very well, mother ! " he said half aloud, " I will go
home ; but I won't fall in love with your Creole heiress,
and so I give you warning." The second epistle was in a
very different style. It was short and energetic, and to
the point, and not very easy to decipher. Miss Augusta
Sutherland told her brother that she was glad he had come
back from that horrid Europe, and she hoped he would
come home at once, and stay at home, as he ought to do.
They had Eulalie Rohan and her grandfather with them,
and mamma was just bewitched about that Eulalie.

" I dare say," wrote the young lady, " you will be bad
as the rest, and go stark staring mad about her black eyes,
and pale face, and long curls, the moment you see them.
Every one does. Even at school it was just the same ;
and I declare it turns me sick sometimes. She has only
been here a week, and not a soul of them in St. Mary's
can talk of a single blessed thing but the black-eyed
beauty up at Maplewood. Of course, I am nowhere.
Even mamma scarcely takes any notice of me now. And
when you return it will be the same, only more so. Of
course, you will fall in love with Miss Rohan and her
overgrown fortune, and there will be a wedding at Maple-
wood. At least if there doesn't, I know mamma will
have to be put in the nearest asylum. Come home as fast
as you can. It is rather pleasant seeing one's fellow-beings
making fools of themselves when one gets used to it ; and
I know you will take the Cuban fever as badly as the
rest. Your affectionate sister,

"Augusta Sutherland.

" P. S. — Phil. Sutherland is knocking about New York
somewhere in his usual good-for-nothing way, if the
authorities have not sent him to Blackwell's Island as a
vagrant. If you see him, you may fetch him to Maple-
wood. If he is not blessed with the usual quantity of
brains, he is at least harmless, and it will be a sort of
charity to keep him for the summer. Tell him I said so.

" A. S,"

14

A wife's tragedy.

Mr. Sutherland's gold repeater pointed to half-past
one as he finished the perusal of these letters. He rose,
folded them up, thrust them into his coat-pocket, turned
down the gas, and prepared to retire.

" Poor little Gusty !" he said to himself, with a yawn.
" I don't think her convent life has changed her much.
She does not seem to be so enraptured with this Creole
belle as my mother ; but, then, it never was the little
girl's nature to go into raptures over anybody."

Doctor Philip Sutherland presented himself next morn-
ing at his cousin's hotel in time for breakfast. Arthur
showed him his sister's letter, while they lounged over
their cofiee and toast, which was served that morning in
his room.

" You had better run down with me, Phil.," he said.
" There used to be capital trout streams about St. Mary's ;
and when you're not angling for the silver-backs, you can
angle for that golden prize — the Cuban heiress."

" All right !" said Phil. " I have no objection to running
wild for a couple of months at Maple wood ; and I do
want to look at this bird of Paradise they have caged in
your Maine home. When do you go ? "

" At noon, in the 12.50 train ; so you had better be off
to your lodgings, and get your belongings together be-
times. Fetch your cab here at twelve. I have an engage-
ment in the interval."

" Yes, up-town, in Forty-third street, of course ! Are
you going to ask Miss Isabel Vansell the momentous
question before you start ? The gods grant she may say,
Yes ! Some faint ray of hope where the heiress is con-
cerned may glimmer for me then."

Mr. Sutherland's reply to this was to take his cousin
by the collar, and walk him out of the room, with an im-
perative order to be off and mind his own business, which
Doctor Phil, did, laughing as he ran down the hotel-steps,
while Mr. Arthur Sutherland stood before tjie mirror
making his toilet.

ARTHUR SUTHERLAND.

15

A most elaborate toilet indeed. Arthur Sutherland
was not a fop or a dandy, but no fop or dandy that ever
lounged in the sunshine down Broadway could take more
pains brushing hair or arranging his collar or cravat than
he, this morning. He had every reason to be satisfied
with the result ; the glass gave back a strikingly -hand-
some face — a complexion of almost womanly fairness,
large blue Saxon eyes, and profuse auburn hair. Yes, he
looked handsome, and he knew it, still without being a
fop or a dandy ; and, the toilet completed, he ran down
the hotel-steps, sprang into a passing stage, and was
rattled up- town. His destination was, as his cousin sur-
mised, Forty-third street ; and ascending the marble steps
of one of its long row of brown-stone palaces, he rang the
bell and was admitted by a maid-servant. It was not his
first call evidently ; for the girl knew him, and returned
his nod and smile of recognition.

" Is Miss Vansell at home ? " Mr. Sutherland asked.

Yes, Miss Vansell was at home and in the morning-
room ; and Susan, as she spoke, threw open the door of
the morning-room, announced Mr. Sutherland, and van-
ished. Arthur Sutherland had his own ideal of women,
or at least of the woman he wanted to marry. A tall and
slender angel robed in white book-muslin, with an aureole
of pale gold hair, a broad white brow, and dove-like eyes
of blue ; a beautiful and perfect creature, excelling in all
womanly virtue and sweetness ; her very presence breath-
ing purity and holiness, and whose heart never was to
enshrine any image but his.

A lovely being scarcely formed or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded,"

soft of voice, deft of touch, and free from every stain of
earthly evil and passion : a woman and an angel blended
in one, who would choose him out from all the world, and
love him and cling to him in perfect faith and trust until
death ; a perfect being, perfect in all feminine accom^

16

A wife's tragedy.

plishments, whose music would lull him to sleep in the
twilight, and whose fair Madonna-face would always
brighten with a smile when he came, and sadden with
tender melancholy when he went away. This was
the sort of woman he wanted to marry ; and per-
haps he thought he saw his ideal, this bright May morn-
ing, when he entered the morning-room of the Vansell
mansion.

Isabel Vansell stood by the open window, the breeze
lifting her pale tinselled hair, and fluttering the azure rib-
bons at her waist, and the flowing skirt of her white muslin
dress. She stood by the open window, among pots of tall
rose-geraniums, whose perfume scented the air, placing bits
of sugar between the gilded bars of a canary-bird's cage,
with deft white taper fingers. Robed in white, crowned
with that aureole of golden ringlets, with as fair and sweet
a face as ever the sun shone on — surely, in this graceful
girl, whose blue eyes drooped, and whose pink cheeks
deepened as she gave him her hand, Arthur Sutherland
had found his ideal. Long after, when the dark and
stormy and tragical days that intervened were past, that
picture came back to him with a remorseful pang — this
fair and graceful girl, with the sunlight making a halo
round her drooping head.

Mr. Sutherland sat down by the open window among
the rose-geraniums and canary-birds, and talked to Miss
Yansell in very common-place fashion, indeed. He ad-
mired her very much ; she was his ideal, his perfect woman,
and he loved her, or thought he did ; but for all that he
talked common-places, and never let drop one tender or
admiring word. Isabel Vansell sat opposite him, with the
breeze still stirring her lovely pale-gold hair, and the
sunlight illuminating her delicate face.

They talked of the old themes, they went over the old
beaten ground — Miss Vansell had no striking or original
ideas on any subject, but she talked on all with charming
fejijiriine grace. She was not voluble, and was Just a

ARTHUR SUTHERLAND.

17

thought shy ; but Mr. Sutherland admired her none the
less for that. Yet still he never betrayed that admiration
by one word, or look, or tone ; and it was only when he
arose to go that he alluded to his departure at all.

" It must be ' good-bye ' this time, and not ' good morn-
ing,' "he said, smiling ; " I leave town at noon."

" Leave town ! " the young lady echoed, faintly, the
rose-tint fading out of her sweet face ; " I did not know
— I thought — "

Arthur Sutherland saw and interpreted the signs, with
a little thrill of delight.

" I shall not be absent long," he said. " New York has
irresistible charms for me just now. I shall only run down
to Maple wood to see my mother and sister, and return."

The colour came back to Miss Vansell's cheeks, and she
held out her lily-leaf hand with a smile.

" Bon voyage" she said ; " after three years' absence, I
wonder you could linger even a week in New York."

" Home has its charms, and so has New York ; very
powerful ones just at present. Shall I find you in the city
when I return ?" he asked, holding the hand she given him
a moment.

"Yes," said Miss Vansell, blushing beautifully; "good-
bye!"

The momentous question, to which, Phil, had alluded,
rose to the young man's lips, but he checked himself.

" Time enough when I return," he thought ; " it will be
sweet to know it is for that I shall return."

So the words were not spoken that would have sealed
his fate — that would have changed the whole current of
his life. Perhaps there is a Providence in these things ;
and all the fever of love, and doubt, and anguish, and
misery was to be undergone, to make him a better man, to
try him as gold is tried in the crucible.

Once he looked back, as he descended the stone steps,
at the window of the morning-room. His ideal was there
still, among the rose-geraniums and the birds, with the
fair Madonna-face, and tender blue eyes.

CHAPTEE II.

EULALIE.

IN the puiple twilight of the next evening the two
young men drove, in a buggy hired at tlie railway-
station, through the one long, straggling street of the vil-
lage of St. Mary's.

I wonder if any one who reads this ever was in St.
Mary's; if not, I advise them to visit it as speedily as
possible. That beautiful little city, Portland, is very near
it ; and of all delightful villages on the rock-bound coast
of Maine, I do not think there is one more delightful than
St. Mary's. You walk down its chief street, between two
rows of dear little white cottages, with green window-
shutters and red doors, their snowy fronts all overrun
with sweetbrier, and their windows looking into the pret-
tiest of flower-gardens. You walk down the long strag-
gling street, until it ceases to be a street, and you find
yourself on a long white sandy beach, with the broad blue
Atlantic spreading out before you, and melting in the far-
off* purple horizon into the low blue sky. You see wind-
ing paths leading here and there to beautiful villas and
stately mansions, embosomed in towering trees ; and still
further away, your view is bounded by black piny woods
and the misty outline of hills. The salt breath of old
ocean is in your lungs, its saline freshness in your face,
its ceaseless roar in your ears, but there is little of the
strife and tumult and bustle and uproar of the big rest-
less world in St. Mary's.

In the purplish gloom of the May-twilight, Arthur

EtfLALlE.

19

Sutherland and his cousin drove slowly along the pleasant
country-roads, with swelling meadows and dark woods,
and peaceful-looking farmhouses and stately homesteads
on either hand. It was all very familiar and very dear
to them both; they had spent their boyhood together
here before they had gone forth to light the battle of life ;
and every green lane and upland meadow and forest ar-
cade was as well known to them as their own faces in the
glass. They drove along in the misty twilight, with
the scented country air blowing in their faces, very
silently — thinking of these by-gone days, perhaps, and
wondering if they had changed as little as the land-
scape m these intervening years. The twilight was
deepening into starlit night as the home of Arthur Suther-
land came in view. A -pair of tall iron gates stood wide ;
and you saw a spacious carriage -drive, winding away
between two rows of giant maples and hemlocks, while
miniature forests of these same noble trees spread them-
selves away on either hand. Embosomed among these glo-
rious old trees stood a long, low old-fashioned gra}" stone
house, older than the Revolution, and built far more with
a view to strength and durability than beauty or chaste-
ness of architecture. There were modern additions and
repairs ; but the old gray stone house, with its high nar-
row windows and stacks of chimneys and peaked gables
stood much as it had stood when the first Sutherland who
emigrated from England to the colonies built it, over one
hundred years before. The Sutherlands were proud of
their old mansion — very old as age goes in America — and
only altered it to make unavoidable repairs. The long
drawing-room and dining-room windows opened upon a
sweep of grassy lawn, sloping down to the groves of maple
and elm and hemlock like a green velvet carpet ; a piazza
run around the second story, in which the tall windows
opened in the same fashion. Stables and out-houses, also
of gray stone, were in the rear of the building, and beyond
them stretched a delightful orchard, where apple and

20

A wife's tragedy.

plum, and pear and cherry-trees scented the air with their
blossoms in spring, and strewed the sward with their de-
licious ripe fruit in autumn. To the right rolled away
swelling meadows, ending where the pine woods began ;
to the left, another long garden, all aglow in summer with
rose-trees, and where little wildernesses of lilacs and la-
burnums, and cedar and tamarack, sloped down to the
sea ; a glorious old garden, in whose green arcades and
leafy aisles delicious silence and coolness ever reigned,
where the singing of numberless birds, the wash of the
ceaseless waves, or the swaying of the bough in the breeze,
made music all day long ; a dreamy, delightful old gar-
den, where everything grew or did not grow, as best
pleased itself, ending in a grassy terrace, with a flight of
stone steps leading down to the beach below. A magni-
ficent place altogether, this ancestral home of the Suther-
lands. There was not a tree or stone inside the iron
gates that was not dear to them, and of which they were
not proud.

The round May moon was sailing over the dim, dark
hill-tops as the two young men drove round to the stables
and left their vehicle there. Two long lines of light
glanced across the front of the old stone house ; and, in
the blue, misty moonlight, it cast quaint and weird shad-
ows athwart the turfy lawn.

Arthur Sutherland lifted the ponderous iron knocker
and roused the silent echoes by a loud alarm. The man-
servant who opened the door was a stranger to the re-
turned heir, and stared at him, and informed him Mrs.
Sutherland was engaged, and that there was a dinner-
party at the house.

" Never mind," said Arthur, " I dare say she will see
me. J ust tell her two gentlemen await her presence in
the library, my good fellow ! This way, Phil. !"

He pushed past the man as he spoke, and opened a
door to the left, with an air of one all at home. A shad-
ed lamp burned on a round table in the centre of the

EULALIE.

21

floor — they had no gas at Maplewood — and, by its sub-
dued light, you saw a noble room, lined all round the four
walls with books from floor to ceiling. A portrait of
George Washington hung above the low black marble
mantel ; albeit traditions averred the Sutherlands had
rather snubbed that hero in his lifetime. Arm-chairs,
cushioned in green billiard-cloth, to match the green
carpet and curtains, stood around ; and just as the young
gentlemen subsided into one apiece, a mighty rustling of
silks resounded without, the door opened, and a lady
entered ; a lady, fair and proud, and stately and hand-
some, and still youthful-looking, with fair, unsilvered hair,
delicate regular features, thin lips, and large, light blue
eyes; a lady who would have told you she was five-and-
forty, but who looked ten years younger, elegantly
dressed, and redolent of patchouly. Arthur Sutherland
rose up, the lady looked at him, give a cry of delight, ran
forward, and clasped him in her arms.

" My darling boy! My dearest Arthur! and have you
returned at last!"

" At last, my dear mother, and glad to be home again."

They were very much alike, the mother and son ; the
same tall stature, the same blond type of Saxon beauty ;
but the proud and somewhat severe look in the mother's
blue eyes was a warm and more genial light in the son's.
She held him off at arm's-length, and looked at him with
loving and delighted eye.

" You have grown taller and stouter, I think," she said,
while her son stood laughingly, to be inspected. " Your
three years' travel has decidedly improved you! My
dearest boy, I cannot tell you how rejoiced I am to have
you home once more !"

" A thousand thanks, mother mine ! But have you no
welcome for this other stranger ? "

The lady turned round quickly. She had quite over-
looked him in the happiness of seeing her boy.

Doctor Sutherland came forward with a profound bow.

B

22

A wife's tragedy.

" Philip Sutherland ! " she said, smilingly, holding out
her ringed, white hand. " I am very glad to see you
back again at Maplewood."

Mr. Philip Sutherland expressed his thanks, and his
pleasure at seeing her looking as young and handsome as
ever.

"Pshaw!" said the lady, smiling graciously, however.
"Have you not ceased that old habit of yours, of talking
nonsense, Philip ? Have you dined, Arthur ? "

" Yes, mother. We dined in Portland. You are hav-
ing a dinner-party, they tell me ? "

" Only Colonel and Mrs. Madison and the Honourable
Mr. Long and his daughter. Will you go up to your
room and dress, and join us in the drawing-room ? The
gentlemen have not left their wine yet. You will find
your room in as good order as if| you had been absent
three days instead of three years ; and, Philip, you know
your own old chamber."

" Up in the cock-loft ! " muttered Philip, [sotto voce.
" Yes, ma'am, I know."

" But I should like to see Augusta first, mother. Will
you send her word ? "

" I'm here ! " screamed a shrill voice ; and the door was
flung open, and a young lady bounced into the room and
bounced up to the speaker, flinging her arms round his
neck, kissing him with sounding smacks : a young lady,
inclined to embonpoint, fair-haired and blue-eyed — as it
was the nature of the Sutherlands to be ; but, unlike the
Sutherlands, with a snub-nose. Yes, this young lady was
a Sutherland, but she had a snub nose and a low fore-
head, and cheeks like a milkmaid in colour and plump-
ness ; but for all that, a very nice-looking and very nice
girl, indeed.

" Now, there, Augusta, don't strangle me," said Miss
Augusta's brother, when he thought he had been suffi-
ciently kissed. " Stand off and let me look at you. How
fat you have grown ! "

EULALIE.

2a

" Oh, have I ? " exclaimed Miss Sutherland, with sud-
den asperity. " I wonder you let me in the room before
you told me that. Phil. Sutherland, how do you do ? I
knew 3^ou were dying to be asked down here, and so I
asked you ! "

Dr. Sutherland murmured his thanks in a subdued
tone — he was always sudbued in the presence of this out-
spoken cousin ; but the young lady paid no attention to
him.

" Hadn't you better go back to the drawing-room,
mamma ? That horrid old Colonel Madison will drink
so much port wine, and come in and bore us all to death
if you're not there to listen to him. I hate those stupid
stories about Mexico, and all the valiant deeds he did
there, and so does Eulalie ; and I gape in his face, and
he goes off and tells his wife I'm the most ill-bred girl he
ever met. I know he tells her that, and I hate him ! "

Miss Sutherland bounced out of the room as she had
bounced into it, and Mrs. Sutherland turned to follow
her.

" Make your toilets, young gentlemen, and show your-
selves in the drawing-room as quickly as possible. Your
luggage is upstairs by this time, no doubt."

She sailed out of the room ; and the two young men
ran up-stairs to their respective apartments — Mr. Philip
Sutherland's being rather in the attic than otherwise.

" My old roost looks much the same as ever," said the
young doctor, glancing around. " I wonder if any one has
courted the balmy up here since I left, or if it has been
sacred to the memory of Philip Sutherland ! "

The young physician made a rather careful toilet, with
the memory of the Creole heiress in his mind, and de-
scended presently in all the purple and fine linen proper
for young men to wear, and tapped at his cousin's door.

" Are you ready, old boy ? " he said, opening it and
looking in. " Ah ! I see you are, and most elaborately got
up ! Now, then, for our dark-eyed heiress ! "

24

A wife's tragedy.

The long drawing-room was all ablaze with light from
pendant chandeliers when they entered; and Augusta
Sutherland, sitting at a grand piano, was singing a Swiss
song, that seemed more tra-la-las than anything else. The
gentlemen had come in from the dining-room, it seemed ;
for Mrs. Sutherland, lying back in a fauteuil, a la princesse,
Avas listening with languid politeness to a stout military
gentleman with a big bald head, while she watched the
door. A smiling motion brought the young men to her
velvet throne ; and they were introduced in due form to
Colonel and Mrs. Madison — the latter a pale-faced, insipid-
looking little woman, with nothing at all to say.

" Excuse me one moment, colonel," said Mrs. Suther-
land, with her sweetest smile, " while I present my son to
Mr. and Miss Rohan, neither of whom he has seen yet. I
must hear the end of that Mexican adventure."

She took her son's arm, and they walked the length
of the apartment together, while Philip was taken b}' the
button-hole, captive to the Mexican officer, sorely against
his will.

In the shadowy recess of a deep, old-fashioned bay-
window Arthur saw two people sitting. A tall, and
stately, and handsome old man, with hair as white as sil-
ver, and a face deeply furrowed by time or trouble. The
other, a tall and decidedly plain-looking girl, very stylishly
dressed. There was a little low sofa between them that
seemed only a mass of scarlet drapery and cushions, in
the deep shadow cast by the heavy amber-coloured cur-
tains of the bay-window.

" Is it possible," thought Arthur, " that this young
lady, with the small eyes and wide mouth, is the beauty
I have heard so much of ? They must look through a
golden mist, indeed, who can discover loveliness in that
face."

The young lady's name was pronounced even while he
was thinking this ; but the name was Miss Long, and he
remembered what his mother had told him of an Honour-

EtTLALlE.

25

able Mr. Long and his daughter being there. The stately
old gentleman was Mr. Rohan, of Eden Lawn, Cuba, who
bowed rather stiffly as the son of his hostess was intro-
duced.

" Miss Rohan, allow me to present my son ; Arthur, Miss
Eulalie Rohan."

The mass of scarlet drapery was pushed aside by a little
hand all blazing with rich rings, and from the shade of
the yellow curtains a recumbent figure rose, and a sweet
voice, the sweetest he ever had heard, spoke to him,
There had been a greenish gleam as she lifted her head,
and Arthur saw that she wore a circlet of emeralds in her
dense black hair ; but somehow he had thought of the
fatal greenish glitter of a serpent's head, and he could not
get rid of the idea. She rose up from the shadowy back-
ground, among the glowing red of the cushions, a scarlet
shawl thrown lightly over her shoulders ; and she looked
like a picture starting vividly out from black gloom.
Arthur Sutherland saw a face unlike any face he had ever
seen before ; greatblack eyesof dusky splendour,lightingup
gloriously a face of creamy pallor, and flashing white teeth,
showing through vivid crimson lips. He could not tell whe-
ther she was beautiful or not ; he was dazzled by the flash-
ing splendour of those eyes and teeth, set in the shadow of
that raven-black hair. In far-off eastern lands he had seen
such darkly-splendid faces, and it seemed to him for a
moment that he was back in the land of the date and the
palm-tree,under a blazing, tropical sun ; but how strangely
out of place this glowing Assyrian's beauty seemed in his
staid New England home !

She had been resting lazily down among the crimson-
velvet cushions, talking in her sweet, foreign voice to her
grandfather and Miss Long ; but she sat up now, letting
the scarlet shawl trail off her exquisite shoulders. As she
moved her little black head, all running over with curis
that hung below her taper waist, the greenish glitter of
the emeralds flashed and gleamed with a pale, sinister

26

A wife's tragedy.

lustre. Arthur Sutherland hated the gems. He could
not get rid of the thought of the serpent while this pale,
sickly flashing met his eye. He thought of Isabel Van-
sell, who woreOrient pearls as pale and pure as herself ; and
thought how fortunate it was for him that he had seen
and loved her before he met this black-eyed houri, whose
darkly-gorgeous beauty might have bewitched him else.
He was safe now, with that counter-charm, his fair-haired
ideal ; and, being safe, it was only polite to sit down and
talk to his mother's guests ; so he took a vacant chair near
the low sofa, and began to converse.

Mr. Arthur Sutherland, among his other accomplish-
ments, was an adept in the art of " making conversation."
He and Miss Long, who was rather a blue-stocking and
very strong-minded, had a discussion on the difference of
society in the Old World and the New. This led him to
speak of his travels, and he grew eloquent over descrip-
tions of Florence the beautiful, and the solemn grandeur
of the Eternal City. He had heard the wonderful " Mis-
erere " in St. Peter's ; he had made the ascent of Mt.
Blanc ; he had seen the carnival in Venice, and he had per-
formed the Via Crucis in the Holy Land. The great,
solemn, black eyes of Eulalie Rohan fixed themselves on
his face, as she listened in breathless, childlike delight ;
and perhaps the consciousness of this made him yet more
eloquent, though he said very little to her. He had es-
sayed some remarks to her grandfather, and received such
brief replies as to nip the attempted conversation in the
bud. But Eulalie could talk as well as listen ; and pre-
sently, when he asked her something about Cuba, the
glorious black eyes lit up, the dark Creole face kindled
with yet more vivid beauty, and she talked of her home
under the orange and citron groves, until he could feel
the scented breath of the Cuban breeze blowing in his face,
and see the magnolia swaying over his head. She talk-
ed with the most charming infantile grace in the world,
in that sweet, foreign-accented voice of hers — the small

EULALIE.

27

ringed-hands fluttering in and out the crimson drapery,
and the serpent gleam of the emeralds ever displeasing
the young man's eyes. She was not eloquent or original ;
she was only very sweet and charming, and innocently
childlike — not a bit strong-minded, like Miss Long — not
at all given to bounce like Miss Auorusta Sutherland —
and her sweetness was something entirely different from
that of his pale, golden-haired saint and ideal, Isabel Van-
sell — this dark divinity ,who was all jets and sparkles, all
scarlet drapery and amber back -ground, and big black
eyes, and emeralds and diamond rings. He could see,
while he sat gravely listening to her sweet, childish voice,
Philip Sutherland, staring over at her with open-eyed ad-
miration, and smiled to himself.

" Poor Phil. 1 " he thought ; " he is just the sort of fellow
to be caught by this tropical butterfly, this gorgeous little
flower of the sun. Those big, velvet- black eyes of hers,
and this silvery prattle, so babyish and so sweet, and that
feathery cloud of purple-black hair is just the sort of
thing to fascinate him. Now I should like a woman, and
this is only a lisping baby — a very charming baby, no
doubt, to people who admire olive skins, and pretty little
tattle, but not at all to my taste."

Miss Rohan had one attentive auditor to everything
she said, besides Mr. Sutherland, and that was her grand-
father. Ai'thur had been struck from the very first by
the old man's manner toward his child ; it was such a
mixture of yearning, mournful tenderness, watchful care.
He watched her every movement; he listened to every
word that was said to her, and every word she uttered in
reply. He seemed to have eyes and ears only for her,
and his gaze had something of unspeakable sadness in it.
The prevailing expression of his whole face, indeed, was
one of settled melancholy ; that furrowed countenance
was a history of deepest trouble — past, perhaps, but whose
memory darkened his whole life.

Arthur Sutherland saw all this, and wondered what

28

A wife's tragedy.

that trouble could be, and what connection it could have
with this bric(ht young creature, who seemed as inno-
cently and childishly happy as if she were only a dozen
instead of eighteen years old. Whatever it was, its blight
had not fallen on her — her laugh was music itself, her
silvery prattle gay as a skylark's song.

" Perhaps he loves her so well, and fears to lose her so
much," he thought, " that the love and fear bring that
look of unspeakable trouble with which he seems per-
petually to regard her. Grandfathers have idolized before
now granddaughters far less beautiful and charming than
this dark-eyed siren."

The little part};^ gathered in the recess of the bay-win-
dow so comfortably was broken up at this moment. The
Honourable Mr. Long, who had been turning Miss Suth-
erland's music while she sang, came forward now with
that young lady on his arm, and begged Miss E-ohan to
favour them with some music. Eulalie arose promptly,
and Arthur saw for the first time what a tiny creature
she was, with a waist he could have spanned like a doll's,
and her flossy black ringlets hanging tar below it. There
was a general move. Mr. and Miss Long and Mr. Rohan
all adjourned to the other end of the drawing-room, but
Arthur Sutherland remained, and his sister dropped down
on the sofa Miss Rohan had just vacated.

" There they go ! " was her resentful cr}^ ; " the Longs
and the grandfather, and now mamma and that stupid
Mexican colonel and his automaton wife, and Phil. Suth-
erland, all over to the piano to hear the millionaire's heir-
ess sing. Nobody paid any attention to my singing, of
course; even Mr. Long was gaping behind the music
when he thought I was not looking. I wonder, if I were
a millionaire's granddaughter, if people would flock round
to Jisten to every word I let fall, as if they were pearls
and diamonds, or would my snub nose and one hundred
and forty-two pounds avoirdupois set them gaping when
I open my mouth, as it does now."

EULA.LIE.

29

Arthur Sutherland smiled at his sister's tirade, but did
not reply. He was listening to the grand, grateful notes
of the instrument, swept by a master hand, and a rich
' contralto voice singing some mournful Spanish ballad.
The voice was full of pathos, the song sad as a funeral
dirge, with a wild, melancholy refrain.

"There!" burst out Augusta, "that's the sort of dis-
malness she sings all the time. It makes my flesh creep
sometimes to hear her, and people go mad over her
singing and playing. Nobody ever sees anything in
mine, and I'm sure I play the hardest gallops and polkas
^oing ; but I dare say, if I had big black eyes like two
full moons, and a grandfather with several millions of
money, it would be different !"

" How very fond of her he seems to be ! " said Arthur,
looking over at the piano, where Mr. Rohan stood with
his eyes on his granddaughter's face while she sang.

" Who ? Her grandfather ? Good gracious me ! " cried
Miss Sutherland shrilly, " there never was anything like
it ! They talk about people adoring the ground other
people walk on, but if they only could know how that
Mr. Rohan admires Eulalie, they might talk. Of course
it would be sinful idolatry in anybody but a millionaire ;
and I know if I was Eulalie I should not put up with it.
He watches her as a cat watches a mouse ; he won't let
her go to parties ; he won't let her go outside the door,
unless he is tagging at her apron-strings. He wouldn't
let her speak to a young man, or let one look at her, if he
could help it ; and he would like to shut her up in a box
and carry her round with him, like that princess in the
Arabian Nights. He wanted her to take the veil when
she was in the convent."

" Wanted her to take the veil," echoed her brother,
amazed.

" Yes," said Augusta, " and my opinion is there is some-
thing wrong in the business, and Eulalie doesn't know
what. She says he has been like that ever since she can

30

A wife's tragedy.

remember, loving her to absurdity, but always as if he
pitied her or was afraid of her, or something. He is a
very nice old man, but I think he is a monomaniac where
his granddaughter is concerned — or would be, if he was
not a millionaire."

A monomaniac ! The words spoken so lightly struck
strangely and harshly on the ear of Arthur Sutherland.
He had heard of such things ! And was this the secret
of those loving, anxious, watchful looks ? Did he know
he was mad, and did he fear the same fate for his beauti-
ful child ? Was it hereditary in the family, yet a secret
from her ?

" Well ! " exclaimed his sister, with her round, blue
eyes fixed on his face. " I should like to know what
that solemn countenance means ! If you were making
your will you couldn't look more dismal ; and as you seem
to have lost your tongue since Eulalie went away, I'll go
and fetch her back to you."

Off went Miss Augusta. Arthur shook away the creep-
ing feeling that had come over him, with a slight shudder.

" What an idiot I am ! " he thought, " weaving such a
web of horrible, improbable fancies out of a casual word
let drop by my chattering sister. The old man dotes on
his grandchild, and that ceaseless care and mournful ten-
derness of look and voice is only the effect of excessive
love, and fear of losing her."

Half an hour after the dinner-party broke up, and the
guests went home. Miss Rohan bade them good-night,
with one of her brilliant smiles, and went up stairs with
Augusta. As Arthur followed, and was entering his own
room, Philip came along the hall, with a night-lamp in
his hand. He had managed to get introduced to the
heiress, and had been devouring her with his eyes ever
since they had fallen on her first.

" I say, Arthur," he cried, as he went back, " what a
glorious little beauty she is ! "

Arthur Sutherland looked at his cousin with a pitying
smile.

EULALIE.

31

" With what different eyes people see things ! " he said.
" You saw a glorious little beauty, and I saw — a dark
fairy with a soft voice ! Good night ! "

Arthur Sutherland's dreams were a little confused that
night, and Eulalie Rohan and Isabel Vansell got hopeless-
ly mixed up in them. Once, in those uneasy dreams, he
was walking through the leafy arcades and green isles of
Maplewood with blue-eyed Isabel, robed in white and
illuminated by the sunlight as he had seen her last, when,
out of the black shadow of the trees a tall serpent reared
itself upright with a hiss, and the sunshine was suddenly
darkened. The serpent had an emerald flashing in its
head, and looked at him with the great black eyes of the
Creole heiress ; and then he awoke with a violent start,
|nd the vision was gone.

CHAPTER III.

BEGINNING OF THE TEOUBLE.

ARTHUR SUTHERLAND rose early the morning
after his return home, despite the previous day's
fatiguing journey, and made a hasty toilet. The house
was still as a tomb ; no one was stirring but the birds who
chaunted their matin-hymns in the glorious May sunshine,,
among the branches of the quaint hemlocks trailing
* against his chamber- window. It had been his custom
from boyhood to indulge himself in a long walk, a longer
ride, or a sea bath before breakfast. He chose to ride this
morning ; and, mounting his horse, rode away with all the
old boyish light-heartedness back again. It was so pleas-
ant to be at home after all these years of sight-seeing, and
roaming up and down this big world ; andMaplewood,in the
refulgent morning sunshine, was inexpressibly beautiful.

Yesf Maplewcod was beautiful, and Arthur's heart was
in a glow of happy pride as he rode down the long
graveled drive, through the tall iron gates and out into
the dusty highroad. He met the farm-labourers going to
their work ; he could see that St. Mary's was all astir, but
he did not ride through St. Mary's. He galloped along
the quiet roads, so tempted by the beauty of the morning
that two hours had elapsed before he returned. Leaving
his horse to the care of the stable-boys, he came round by
the back of the house, humming a tune. As he turned a
sharp angle of the building, the long grassy terrace over-
looking the sea came in sight ; and he saw, to his surprise,
a fairy form, in a white cashmere morning-dress, loitering

BEGINNING OF THE TKOUBLE.

33

. to and fro, and dropping pebbles into the placid waters
below. She wore a little straw hat on her black curls, its
white feather drooping among them, and the scarlet shawl
of last nisfht drawn round her shoulders. Miss Rohan
was not loitering alone either ; near her, leaning over the
low iron railing, stood Philip Sutherland, talking anima-
tedly, and Arthur could hear her low, musical laugh where
he stood. There was no earthly reason why this should
annoy him — he would not, for a moment, have confessed
even to himself that it did annoy him — but his brow
contracted, and he felt, for the first time, that his cousin
was an officious meddler, whom it would have been better
to have left in New York. He had started forward im-
pulsively to join them — wias he not master here, and did
not the laws of hospitality compel him to be attentive to
his mother's guest ? — when he as impulsively stopped.
Walking rapidly through the chestnut-grove, leading from
the lawn to this terrace, he saw Mr. Rohan, his aged face
looking tenfold more troubled and anxious and careworn
in the garish sunshine than it had done in the lamplight.
The trouble in his face was so very like terror, as he
looked at his granddaughter loitering there with Philip
Sutherland, that Arthur stared at him, amazed. He
joined them, drawing his child's arm within his own, and
bowing coldly and distantly to her companion. Ten min-
utes after he saw the old man lead her away, and Philip
following in their wake, faithful as a needle to the North
Star. Arthur did not join him; he lingered on the ter-
race, smoking a cigar, and trying to puzzle out the riddle,
and only mystifying himself by the effort. He flung his
smoked-out cigar into the blue waves ; and seeing by his
watch it was the breakfast hour, he strolled back to the
house, and into the breakfast-room.

The breakfast-room at Maplewood was a very pretty
apartment, with canary-birds and flower-pots in the win-
dow, and the fresh' sea-breeze rustling the muslin curtains.

Standing among these birds and flowers when he entered

34

A wife's tragedy.

was Eulalie. That sunlit figure in the white dress, among
the geraniums and canaries, reminded him of another pic-
ture he had looked at, just before leaving New York.
But Eulalie turned round, and all similitude vanished.
The dusky splendour of her Southern beauty extinguished
poor Isabel's pale prettiness, as the sun might a penny
candle. The flashing of those glorious eyes and those
pearly teeth, the rosy, smiling mouth disclosed, blotted
out even the memory of his flaxen-haired ideal. He hated
tarry tresses, and sloe-black eyes, and dusky skins, and
passionate dark daughters of the South ; but for all that
he was none the less dazzled by those wonderful Creole
eyes now. The gleaming emeralds he had disliked so
much glittered no longer amid the ebon waves of her hair
• — some scarlet geranium-blossoms shone like red stars in
their place, and were the only speck of colour she wore.

Mrs. Sutherland and Augusta and Philip were there,
and Mr. Rohan was near his granddaughter, as usual.
He sat beside her at table, too, and listened to her, and
watched her, with the same jealous watchfulness as last
night. Just as they sat down, a young lady entered the
room, at sight of whom both young men started up with
exclamations of surprise, shaking hands, and calling her
familiarly by her Christian name. She was a tall, slim,
pale girl, rather pretty, with the light hair, and blue e3^es,
and a look generally, of the Sutherlands. She was dressed
in slight mourning, and looked four or five years the senior
either of Augusta or Eulalie.

" Why, Lucy," Arthur cried, " this is an astonisher ! I
did not know you were here 1 Mother said nothing about
it."

Lucy Sutherland — she was cousin to both young men,
and poorer even than Philip — lifted her light eyebrows
slightly as she took her place.

" No," she said quietly ; " why should she mention so
unimportant a matter. It was not worth mentioning."

Arthur smiled ; perhaps the answer was characteristic.

BEGINNING OF THE TROUBLE.

35

" Why were you not down last night ?"

" Because she is an oddity," said his mother, taking it
upon herself to reply; "and as unsocial as that Black
Dwarf in Sir Walter Scott's novel. I tell her she should
have been with Robinson Crusoe on his island, or go and
be a nun at once."

Miss Lucy Sutherland made no reply; silence was
another of her oddities, it seemed; but Augusta and
Ealalie chattered away like magpies. The whole party
loitered a very unnecessary length of time over the break-
fast-table; and, when they arose, the young ladies ad-
journed to the drawing-room — Miss Rohan and Miss
Augusta to practise some wonderful duet, and Miss Lucy
to seat herself at another window, and stitch away in-
dustriously at some elaborate piece of embroidery. Philip
Sutherland hung devotedly over the piano, with rapt face ;
the dragon — as he mentally styled the Cuban millionaire
— had gone to the library to write letters. Arthur seated
himself beside his cousin Lucy, to talk to her, and furtively
watch the fairy figure in white at, the piano ; how well
she played ; how those tiny, ringed hands flew over the
polished keys, and what wonderful power to fascinate the
little dark witch had ! He talked to Lucy Sutherland,
snipping remorselessly at her silks, and listening to the
music, and thinking what danger he might have been in
of falling in love with a black-eyed girl if he had not been
fortunate enough to first meet with Isabel Vansell.

" How long have you been at Maplewood, Lucy ?" he
asked his cousin.

" Since my father's death — five months ago," she replied,
in a grave but steady voice. " Your mother finds me use-
ful, and desires me to stay ; and, being of use, I am quite
willing."

Arthur smiled as he looked at her.

" Proud Lucy ! You are the same as of old, I see. I
am very glad you are here. You must never leave us,
Lucy, until you leave us for a home of your own."

36

A wife's tragedy.

Lucy Sutherland was habitually pale, but two red spots
came into her cheeks, and slowly died out again. She did
not reply ; she did not lift her eyes from her work, as her
needle flashed in and out.

You were here when Mr. and Miss Rohan came, of
course?" he said, after a pause.

" Yes."

" How do you like Miss Rohan ? "
" Very well."

" Which means, I suppose, you do not like her at all ? "
Lucy Sutherland looked up, calmly, as she threaded her
needle.

Not at all ! Why should I dislike her ? "

" Heaven knows ! For some inscrutable female reason;
but I am sure you do not like her."

" I have seen very little of Miss Rohan," said Lucy,
rather coldly. " I'm always busy ; and she could hardly
be expected to trouble herself much about me. Even if
I were her equal in social position, we are so much unlike,
and have so few tastes and sympathies in common that
we should never care for each other's companionship.
Miss Rohan never thought twice about me, and is
supremely indifferent whether I like or dislike her."

" There spoke the pride of all the Suther lands ? " ex-
claimed Arthur, smiling. " Why, you foolish Lucy, what
do you mean by talking of being beneath her ? Are you
not a lady by birth and descent and education, as much
as she is ? As for her grandfather's millions, she can
ajQTord to look down upon the whole of us, where they are
concerned ; for, if report speaks truly, she will be rich
enough to buy and sell all the Sutherlands that ever
existed."

Here there was an interruption. Mrs. Sutherland came
in to tell her son there were callers for him in the recep-
tion-room. The guests of last night had spread the re-
port of his return, and his old friends were losing no time.

" Mr. Synott asked for you, Philip," Mrs. Sutherland

BEGINNING OF THE TROUBLE.

37

said. " I dare say you would prefer turning over the
music, but you must go."

" Oh, hang Mr. Synott ! " muttered Philip ; " I wish he
was in Jericho ! "

There was no help for it, however ; he had to go ; and
what was worse, he and Arthur were kept there until the
luncheon-bell rang, by a constant stream of troublesome
old friends. There was a conservatory off this reception-
room where the back window commanded a view of the
long terrace, and they could see Mr. Rohan and his dark-
eyed granddaughter lounging there, when the practising
and letter-writing were over. They disappeared before
luncheon-hour, and were not present at that meal; neither
was Lucy. The Cuban grandee and his grandchild had
gone off riding ; and it was another of Lucy's oddities
never to eat luncheon. It was a far less pleasant meal
than breakfast had been, although half a dozen of the old
friends partook of it, and talked a great deal ; but the
dark, piquant face and wonderful black eyes were miss-
ing, and it was all vexation of spirit.

Arthur Sutherland found that afternoon very long.
The troublesome friends went away at last, but not until
he was heartily sick of them ; and then he went up into
his room to write letters. But, somehow, the great black
eyes and entrancing Creole face came between him and
the white paper, and sent him into long fits of musing
that made him sadly neglect his writing. He tried to
read ; but his book seemed stupid, and he flung it aside
and went out, in desperation, to smoke away the tedious
hours. He found Philip Sutherland pacing up and down
the sunny lawn, with his cigar, and joined him. Augusta
sat under a tree, reading a novel, with a big black New-
foundland dozing beside her ; and Lucy, in her own
chamber-window, still bending over her embroidery,
watched them, and guessed instinctively the cause of their
restlessness.

G

38

A wife's tragedy.

" When they were here before," she thought, with a
contemptuous smile, " they were riding over the country,
or off with their fishing-rods all day long. Now, they
dare not stir outside the gates, lest they should lose one
glimpse of that sallow baby-face and those great, mean-
ingless black eyes."

The young men smoked a vast number of cigars under
the waving arms of the old trees ; but thsy did not talk
much, and Miss Rohan's name was not once mentioned.
Yet both understood intuitively what the other waited
for, and hated him for it. Philip made some allusion
once to Miss Vansell, and asked Arthur, carelessly, when
he was going back to New York, and had met with a
decided rebuff.

It was nearly six o'clock, and the trees were flinging
long, fantastic shadows on the cool, dark sward, when Mr.
and Miss Rohan returned.

Beautiful she always was ; but in a side-saddle she was
bewitching. She rode a spirited, flashing-eyed Arab, as
dark and as daintily small as herself, and her long, green
riding-skirt floated back in the breeze as she cantered up
the avenue. Exercise could not flush the creamy pallor
of her dark, Creole face ; but it made it radiant, and the
black eyes were as bright as two sable stars. Both young
men started forward to assist her, but, gathering up her
long train in one gloved hand, and laughing gayly, she
sprang lightly out of the saddle unaided.

" Thanks, Messieurs ! " she said ; " but Arab and I
understand each other. Grandpapa, I shall not wait for
you. I must run away and dress."

She tripped away as lightly as any other fairy, and the
young men resumed their sauntering up and down the
darkening avenue until the dinner-bell rang. Then they
returned to the house, and presently the ladies appeared,
and Miss Rohan, as usual, elegantly dressed. She had a
fancy very often of arraying her light, delicate little
figure in rich silks and costly moire antiques, stiff enough

BEGINNING OF THE TKOUBLE.

39

to stand alone ; but this evening Arthur Sutherland could
hardly tell what she wore. He only knew she came
floating in in a cloud of gauzy amber drapery, like a mist
of sunshine, with all her feathery, black ringlets hanging
around her, and wearing no ornaments save a glittering
opal cross attached to a slender gold chain. The yellow,
sinister light of the opals was almost as distasteful to him
as the greenish gleam of the emeralds.

" I wish she would not wear jewels," he thought. " At
least, none but diamonds. They are the only gems to bear
comparison with such a pair of eyes."

Miss Rohan was in high spirits, and chattered away in
her sweet, soft voice about the delightful long ride she
and grandpapa had had, and which she had enjoyed so
much. The little heiress and the Sutherlands — mother,
son, and daughter — had the conversation all to them-
selves. The other three took little share in it. Lucy was
silent, because it was Lucy's nature to be silent. Mr.
Rohan was moodily distrait, but not too much so to keep
that endless watch on his granddaughter. And poor Philip
sat staring at the beautiful brunette face across the table
in speechless admiration, to the sad neglect of his dinner
and the rules of politeness.

But Miss Rohan took no notice. She was so accustomed
to be stared at wherever she went that she had grown
used to it, and took the unconscious homage paid her
beauty as a matter of course.

Philip held open the dining-room door for the ladies
when dinner was over, and looked as if he would like to
follow them. The three gentlemen were not very sociable
over their wine and walnuts. Arthur essayed conversation
with the grandfather of Eulalie, but failed ; for Mr. Rohan
only answered absently and in monosyllables. So there
was no temptation to linger ; and they speedily made
their appearance in the drawing-room, where they found
Mrs. Sutherland in an after-dinner doze, and Lucy read-

40

A wife's tragedy.

ing in a corner. The other two were nowhere visible, and
Mrs. Sutherland opened her eyes to explain.

" The girls have gone out, I believe, to look at the moon-
light. Excuse me, Mr. Rohan, but may I ask you to re-
main a moment ? I wish to consult you on a little mat-
ter of business."

Clever mamma ! Her son smiled to himself as he stepped
through the open window out on the lawn. The moon
was sailing up in a cloudless sky ; the stars were number-
less ; and Maplewood — its gray, old mansion, its woods
and shrubberies and groves, its velvety lawns and far-
spreading meadows — looked beautiful enough for fairy-
land.

Instinctively the young men turned their steps ter-
raceward ; and there, leaning over the low iron railing,
were the two girlish figures, the petite fairy in amber
with a cloud of black lace hanging around her ; the other
in pink muslin. The wide sea lay as smooth as a polished
mirror ; the moonlight shone upon it in one long, silvery
track, in and out of which the boats flitted, with their
white wings spread. One gay boatful were singing, and
the music came borne delightfully to them on the low
night-breeze. A woman's sweet voice was singing
" Kathleen Mavourneen," and neither of the cousins spoke
as they joined the listening figures. The spell of the
moonlit sea and the sad, sweet song was not to be broken ;
but Eulalie's dark eyes and bright smile welcomed them.
It was the first time Arthur had been near her without
the Argus-eyes of the grandfather being upon them ; and
just as the melody died out on the water, and he was
thinking how best to take advantage of the situation, lo !
there was that ubiquitous grandfather emerging from the
chestnut-walk. Had he cut short Mrs. Sutherland's little
business matter, or had he managed to escape 1

" The deuse take him ! " was, I am afraid, Arthur Suth-
erland's mental ejaculation. " If she were the Koh-i-noor
itself she could not be more closely guarded ! "

BJlGitNNlNG OF THE TROUBLE.

41

" The dew is falling heavily, Eulalie," he said, drawing
her hand within his arm ; " it is imprudent of you to be
out at this hour. Miss Sutherland, let me advise you to
return to the house."

He walked away with his granddaughter, but none of
the others followed. There was no mistaking his coldly
repellent manner, and Augusta apostrophized him as a
" horrid old bear."

" That's the way he tyrannizes over her all the time ! "
exclaimed Miss Sutherland ; " no old Turk could be worse.
I've told Eulalie about a million times I wouldn't stand
it, but then she has no spirit ! I'd stay out, just for
spite!"

Was it tyranny? Eulalie, looking up, saw her grand-
father's face so full of distress and trouble that her tender
anxiety was aroused.

" What is it, grandpapa ? " she asked. " What is trou-
bling you ? Something has happened."

" No, my darling," he said, with a weary sigh, " nothing
has happened, but the old trouble that never will end
until I am in my grave ! Oh, my darling ! my darling !
I wish we were both there together ! "

" Grandpapa ! " Eulalie cried, shocked and affrighted.

Again he sighed a long and heavy sigh. " Eulalie, are
you not tired of this place ? Would you not like to go
home ?"

" Home ! Oh, dear no, grandpapa ! I am very happy
here, and it is not two weeks since we came. What
would Mrs. Sutherland say ? "

" Why should you care, Eulalie ? Are we not happy
enough together ? Let us go back to Eden Lawn, and
live quietly, as we did before I sent you to school. What
do we want or care for these people ? "

"Very well, grandpapa," but the sweet face darkened and
saddened so while she said it, that his heart smote him.

" You don't want to go, my darling ? "

42

A wife's tragedy.

" Dear grandpapa, I will go if you desire it, but it is
very pleasant to be here."

The troubled look grew deeper on his face than she had
ever seen it, and his answer was something very like a
groan. She clasped her little hands round his arm, and
lifted her wistful dark eyes to his.

" Oh, grandpapa, what is it ? What is this dreadful
trouble that is blighting your whole life ? When will
you cease to treat me like a child — when will you tell
me ? I know I am only a foolish little girl," she said
with a rueful look at her diminutive proportions ; " but
indeed I am not such a baby as you think ! I can bear
to hear it, whatever it is, and you will feel happier for
telling."

" Happier ! " he cried out, passionately, " Eulalie, the
day I tell you my heart will break ! Oh, my pet ! my
darling 1 God alone knows how I loved you, and yet my
only prayer for you, all your innocent life, has been, that
he might bless you with an early death ! "

She clasped her hands in speechless affright, her great
black eyes dilating as she listened to the appalling words.

" When I placed you in the Sacred Heart," he went on,
" it was not so much that you might be educated — that
could have been done at home ; it was in the hope that
you might take the veil, that you might become a nun.
Hundreds as young and beautiful and rich as yourself re-
nounce all this world can give, yearly, to become the
bride of Heaven ; and I hoped you would do the same,
and so escape the horrible fatality that may come. You
would have been safe, then ; they never could tear a nun
from her convent."

" Tear a nun from her convent ! Oh, grandpapa !
grandpapa ! what do you mean ? "

" Not now, Eulalie — not now, but very soon you shall
^ know ! Very soon, because it is impossible for me longer
to conceal the horrible truth. While you were a child,
all was well, and I have tried to keep you a child as long

BEGINNING OF THE TROUBLE.

43

as I could. But you are a woman now, my little inno-
cent lamb ! I never felt it so plainly as to-night."

" To-night ?" She could only echo his own words — she
was too utterly bewildered and shocked to think.

" Yes, these young men have made me see it very plain-
ly," he said, bitterly. " I might have known it was mad-
ness to try to keep lovers off, and you a beauty and an
heiress. The convent was the only hope. Say, my child,
is it too late yet ? do you not long to go back to the peace
and holy calm of the convent, out of this weary battle of
life?"

" Grandpapa, I was very happy in the Sacred Heart
with the dear, kind ladies, but I am also very happy here
in this beautiful world, or would be, if your trouble did
not make me so wretched ! Oh, grandpapa ! what is this
dreadful secret ? "

" Something too dreadful for my lips ever to tell you.
I must say the horrible truth in writing, if my heart
breaks whilst doing it."

Every trace of colour had faded out of the dark face,
and her black eyes were dilated in vague horror.

" Is it any disgrace, grandpapa ? — my father — " she
faltered and stopped.

" Your father was the soul of honour. He never wrong-
ed a human creature in his life ! "

"And my mother ? — I never knew either of them,
grandpapa ? "

"Your mother was beautiful and pure as an angel! As
innocent as a baby of all the wickedness and misery of
this big world ! "

She gave a little sigh of fervent thanksgiving. A great
fear had been removed.

" It cannot be anything so very terrible, then," she said.
" You magnify the danger, grandpapa. Only tell me, and
see how bravely I will bear it ! "

They were ascending the portico-steps. He looked
down on her, and she saw what a haggard and wretched
face he wore.

A wife's tragedy.

" My poor little girl ! " he said mournfully, you do not
know what you are saying ! There are horrors in this
great world that you never have dreamed of. Go to your
room, my darling, and pray to Heaven to give you
strength to bear the blow when it comes."

" Only one word, grandpapa ! " she cried^ a wild idea
flashing through her brain ; " is it some hereditary disease
you fear — is it" — her very lips whitened as she pro-
nounced the word — " is it insanity ? "

The old man looked at her in unmistakable surprise.

" My darling, what put such a revolting idea ij). your
poor little head ! No, physically and mentally the race
from which you have sprung is sound. There are worse
things even than madness 1 "

He left her with the last dreadful words on his lips,
and went up stairs. Eulalie lingered a moment in the
portico, shivering with a horrible vague fear. The two
strolling back from the terrace caught one glimpse of her,
before she saw them and flitted in, but that glimpse was
enough to reveal how sad and disheartened the bright
face had become.

" The old brute has been scolding her !" burst out Philip
Sutherland ; " and choking would be too good for him —
the old monster!"

• A

CHAPTER IV.

BATTLING WITH FATE.

THERE was a perceptible change in the manner of
Eulalie Rohan, after that night's interview. The
vaguely-terrible things the old man had said could
scarcely fail to affect his granddaughter, and disturb her
greatly. She had been so happy all her life — to her, ex-
istence was one long holiday — this lower world was no
place of exile, but a terrestial Eden, and she had been as
innocently and joyously happy as the wild birds warbling
in the trees. But now some shadowy horror impended
over her, all tl^e more fearful for being shadowy, and the
sunshine of her life was suddenly darkened.

" I wonder what it all means," she thought, sadly. " If
grandpapa would only speak out — I think I could bear it
far better than this suspense. What can this dark mys-
tery be ? It is not disgrace, it is not disease, it is not
poverty.^ What, then, is it that is worse than these ?
Poor dear grandpapa ! he is very wretched, I know, but I
am sure that I -shall not be half so unhappy when I know
the truth, as I am now."

The family at Maplewood noticed the change, and won-
dered too. They saw the shadow that had fallen on the
little Creole heiress, and how lovingly sorrowful the eyes
with which she watched her grandfather. She devoted
herself more to him than ever before, walked with him,
rode with him, read with him, sang to him, and did all
in her power to divert him from his morbid melancholy,
with an earnest devotion that was touching to see.

46

A wife's teagedy.

" There is something wrong and abnormal about all
this," thought Arthur Sutherland ; " there is some mys-
tery here, or else Augusta was right, and the old man is
a monomaniac, and she knows it. Poor little girl ! David
never tried harder to win Saul from his gloomy melan-
choly than she does her grandfather. I must ask my
mother what she knows of their history."

It was one evening, in the long drawing-room, about a
week after that moonlight night, that Arthur thought this.
The windows were all wide open and the pale twilight
stole in, fragrant with the perfume of the rose-trees. Eu-
lalie Rohan sat on a low stool at one of these open case-
ments, dressed in white ; and with no jewels, green or
yellow, to offend his fastidious eye. The breeze lifted her
feathery ebon curls, and fluttered back her flowing muslin
sleeves, as her fingers lightly touched the strings of her
guitar. Her grandfather sat in an arm-chair beside her ;
listening with closed eyes to the sweet old Spanish ballad
she sang. There was no other light than the pale gloam-
ing ; the song was low and wild, and mournful, and the
singer's voice full of pathos, that went to his heart. Philip
Sutherland was listening just outside the window with
his heart in his eyes. Poor Philip was wildly, and hope-
lessly, in love with the little Creole beauty, and made no
secret of it; and was madly jealous of Arthur, and every
other single man in the neighbourhood, under forty, who
spoke to her. Augusta and Lucy were spending the even-
ing out — his mother sat at the other extremity of the
apartment, reading a magazine by the last rays of the
daylight. Arthur went over and sat beside her, and
plunged into the subject headforemost.

Mother," he said ; " how long have you known Mr.
Rohan ? "

Mrs. Sutherland looked up and laid down her book.

" How long have I known Mr. Rohan 1 Not very long.
When Augusta was at school in Montreal, I met him there.
It is about three years since I saw him first."

BATTLING WITH E'ATE.

47

" t)o you know anything of his history ? I am curious
to know the meaning of that settled melancholy of his."

" I cannot tell you ; unless it be continued grief for
the death of his only son."

" His only son ! Eulalie's father ! But he has been
dead for upward of eighteen years. A tolerable time to
blunt the edge of any sorrow."

" It has not blunted his, it seems ; and I am at a loss
to account for his gloom in any other way. His son
married very young, before he was twenty, and went
with his bride from Louisiana to Cuba, and died there
ten months after with yellow fever. His wife, a poor
little helpless thing of sixteen, wrote to Mr. Rohan, who
went out there immediately, to find her utterly pros-
trated by the blow. She idolized her young husband, it
seems, and never held her head up again. A few weeks
after Eulalie's birth, she was laid beside him in the ground ;
and Mr. Rohan bought the estate there — Eden Lawn —
and devoted himself to the child she had left. Eulalie
grew up there, and never quitted it until three years ago,
when she was fifteen ; and he placed her in the Sacred
Heart at Montreal, to complete her very imperfect educa-
tion. That is all I know of her history, and this m^ch
Mr. Rohan told me himself."

" Poor little thing ! " said Arthur, looking pityingly
over at the orphan heiress. " She is poorer than other
girls, notwithstanding her grandfather's millions. And
you think the loss of his son has been preying on his
spirits ever since ? "

" It is the only way in which I can account for his sin-
gular gloom ; and his continual watchful anxiety about
Eulalie no doubt springs from excessive love. He seems
very unwilling to speak of himself or his family affairs at all
— in fact, I believe he never would talk if he could help it."

"The Rohans are English, you told me, by descent.
What was Eulalie's mother ? "

" A lovely French Creole, I have heard ; and Eulalie

48

A wife's tragedy.

inherits all her gorgeous Southern beauty. She is like
some Assyrian princess, with those luminous eyes and
that wonderful fall of hair."

The last cadence of the song died out as Mrs. Suther-
land said this — died out as sadly as the last cadence of a
funeral hymn. Arthur looked over at the twilight pic-
ture ; the old man was asleep in his chair, and the little
white figure specking the blue dusk free from his sur-
veillance for once. The opportunity was not to be lost.
Arthur rose and crossed the room, and Eulalie's pensive
face lit up with a beautiful, shy, welcoming smile.

" Your song is a very sad one, Miss Rohan," he said ;
" but all your songs are that. Is it the old story of the
nightingale with the breast against a thorn ? "

" * The sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest
thought,' " quoted Eulalie : " grandpapa loves those quaint
old Spanish ballads, and at this hour so do I. I used to
sit and sing to him by the hour, in the twilight, at dear
old Eden Lawn."

She struck a few plaintive chords of the air she had
been singing, and looked up, dreamily, at the evening star,
whose tremulous beauty she had often watched through
acacia leaves, at this hour, in her sunny Cuban home.
What a lovely night it is ! " she said.

" Yes," said Arthur ; " too lovely to spend in the house.
Will you not come down to the terrace, to see the moon
rise ? "

Phil. Sutherland, watching them, jealously, in the
shadow of the clematis vines, gnashed his teeth at this
rather sentimental request, but Eulalie only smiled and
shook her head.

" You forget, Mr. Sutherland, grandpapa objects to the
night air for me. I don't think it does me any harm, but
he does, and that settles the matter."

" You are obedience itself. Miss Rohan."

" Grandpapa loves me so very much," she said, simply ;
it is the least I can do, surely."

BATTLING WITH FATE.

49

There was a pause. Mrs. Sutherland was ringing for
lights, but the moon streaming in through the waving foli-
age lit up this window with silvery radiance. The little
figure, the tender, beautiful face, the drooping head, with
its cloud of shining tresses, made a very pretty picture,
which stamped itself indelibly in the memory of the two
young men, when the poor little beauty's tragic story was
all over.

" I thought you were to dine this evening at Colonel
Madison's with Lucy and Augusta," he said, presently.

" I was invited, but grandpapa did not wish me to go."

" Your grandpapa is as surly an old Turk as ever I
heard of !" thought Arthur ; " his love is more like tyranny
than anything else."

And I preferred staying home myself," said Eulalie,
lifting her earnest, dark eyes to his face, while the thought
passed through his mind. " I am always happier at home
with grand — "

She stopped and sprang to her feet. Arthur and Philip
darted forward, and all stared at the old man. He was
still asleep, but in his sleep he had screamed out — a scream
so full of horror that it had thrilled through them all.
His face was convulsed, his hands outstretched, and work-
ing in agony.

" It is false ! " he cried, in a voice between a gasp and a
shriek. " She is mine and you shall not take her from
me ? Oh, Eulalie ! Eulalie ! "

He awoke with that scream of agony on his lips, his
face still convulsed with the horror of his dream, his fin-
gers working, his eyes wild. Eulalie knelt beside him,
her face ashen white, and caught his hand in her own.

" I am here," she said ; " dear, dear grandpapa, what is
the matter?"

With an unnatural cry he caught her in his arms and
strained her to him, his whole form quivering with convul-
sive emotion.

" Thank God I" he cried ; " it was all a dream ! Oh, my

50

A wife's tragedy.

darling ! my darling ! I thought they were going to tear
you from me ! "

He dropped his head on her shoulder, and burst out into
a passion of hysterical sobbing, dreadful to hear. Eulalie
looked up at Arthur with a face like marble, but trying
bravely to be calm.

" Will you help him up to his room, Mr. Sutherland ?
Dear, dear, dear grandpapa, don't cry ! You are breaking
my heart ! Dearest grandpapa, don't. Eulalie is here —
it was only a bad dream 1 Nobody shall ever take me
from you !"

She kissed him, and caressed the poor old head ; and
strove by every endearment to soothe him, her voice
trembling sadly. The rest stood by, pale, startled, and
wondering.

The old man lifted his head at last, and saw them. The
sight of those pale, grave faces seemed to restore hira mag-
ically, and he arose, still sustaining his clasp of his grand-
daughter, the horror of his dream yet vibrating through
all his frame.

" I have had a terrible dream ! " he said ; " I fear I
have startled you all. Eulalie, will you help me to my
room ? "

Arthur came forward.

" Miss Rohan is not strong enough," he said ; " permit
me to assist you up-stairs."

But the old man would accept no assistance save his
granddaughter's; and Arthur had to stand and w^atch them
toiling wearily up the great staircase, he leaning on her
arm. Not one of the three spoke when they were gone.
Mrs. Sutherland retreated to her sofa with a very grave
face. Philip went up to his own chamber. The drawing-
room was a dreary desert, now that she was gone, and
Arthur stepped out of the open window on the moonlit
lawn to smoke, and cogitate over his queer bij^iness.

" There is a screw loose somewhere," he thought; "there
is no effect without a cause. What, then, is the cause of

BATTLING WITH FATE.

51

this old man's morbid dread of losing his granddaughter ?
It haunts him in his sleep — it makes his waking life a
misery. There must be some cause for this fear — some
grounds for this ceaseless terror ; or else, through sheer
love, he is going mad. In either case, she is much to be
pitied ; poor thing ! How white and terrified that plead-
ing face was she turned to me. Poor child — she is only a
child ! I pity her very much ! "

Yes ; Mr. Sutherland pitied the black-eyed little heiress
very much, forgetting how near akin pity is to that other
feeling he was resolutely determined not to feel for her.
He pitied her very much, with this dreadful old grand-
father, and paced up and down the lawn in the moonlight,
thinking about her until the carriage that had been sent
to Colonel Madison's returned with his sister and cousin.
It was very late then — past midnight — but he could see
the light burning in Mr. Rohan's room ; and the shadows
cast on the blind, the shadows of the old man and his
grandchild, sitting there, talking still.

Yes, they sat there talking still ; the terror of his dream
so clinging to him that he seemed unable to let her out of
his sight. He sat in an arm chair, she on a low stool at
his feet, her hands clasped in his, her eyes uplifted
anxiously to his disturbed face, her own quite colourless.

" You are better now, grandpapa," she was saying.
" Will you not tell me what that terrible dream was ? "

The bare memory of the dream made him shudder, and
tighten his clasp until her little hands ached.

" 0 my darJing, it was only the great troubles of my
life haunting me in my sleep. The horrible fear that
never leaves me, night or day, realized in my dreams."

" The horrible fear ! Oh, grandpapa, what do you
mean ? What is it you are afraid of ? "

*' Don't ask me ! " exclaimed the old man, trembling at
her words. " Don't ask me ! You will know it too soon,
and it will ruin your life as it has ruined mine."

*" Grandpapa, is it for me or for yourself you fear ? "

52

A wife's teagedy.

" For myself?" he echoed. "Do you think any fear for
myself could trouble me like this ? My life, at the best,
is near its close. Could any fear for myself, do you think,
disturb the few days that are left like this ? No, it is
for you — for you, my cherished darling — that I fear, and
one of the greatest horrors of all is to have to tell you
what that fear is ! "

There was a long pause. Eulalie's face could not grow
whiter than it was, but the great black eyes were un-
naturally dilated. Through it, all this dark, troubled
mystery, she was trying to keep calm, all for his sake.

" You spoke, grandpapa," she said, " of my being torn
from you. Could any one in the world do that ? "

She glanced up at him, but his face was so full of anguish
that she dared not look again.

" Heaven pit}^ you, my poor girl, thej^ could ! You are
my dead son's only child, but I should be powerless to
prevent it ! If all the wealth I possess could save you, I
would open my hands and let it flow out like water. I
could die happy, leaving you penniless, and knowing you
were safe."

Safe ! Safe from what ? " she repeated in vague
horror.

" From a fate dreadful to think of — from a fate the fear
of which is shortening my life."

" Grandpapa ! " she broke out, passionately, " this is
cruel ! You frighten me to death with vague terrors,
when I could far better bear the truth ! Tell me what I
have to dread — the truth will be easier to bear than this
horrible suspense ! "

" Not now ! Not now ! " he cried out, imploringly.
" 0 my Eulalie ! I do not mean to be cruel ! If I have
said this much, it is only to prepare you for the truth. If
this intolerable pain at the heart and this blinding gid-
diness of the head mean what I think they do, my time
is very short. Rest content, my darling, in a very few
weeks you shall know all I "

BATTLING WITH t^ATE.

53

" Only tell me one thing," she pleaded, with new
energy ; " have I enemies ? Is there any one in the world
I have cause to fear ? "

She listened breathlessly for the answer, her great wild
eyes fixed on his face.

" Yes, there is one, and only one, whom you have the in-
tensest cause to fear. It is the dread of meeting this one
enemy that has caused me to keep you secluded — that
has caused me to wish you so ardently to bury yourself
in a convent ! I have been battling with fate for the past
eighteen years, and yet I know it is all in vain. I may
take what precautions I please ; I may seclude you in the
farthest corner of the world ; and yet when the time
comes you and that man will meet ! "

" Hitherto I have never seen him, then ? "

" No — that is, since you were an infant."

" Then, grandpapa, how should he ever know me ? "

The old man looked at her with infinite pity in his eyes.

" My poor child ! I will show you here ! "

He drew from around his neck a thin gold chain, with
a locket attached. He touched the spring and handed
her the locket.

It contained two portraits — one of a bright, boyish
handsome face ; the other, dark and beautiful, the pic-
tured image of the living face looking down upon it.
Under each was a name, " Arthur — Eulalie."

" It is your mother and father, my darling ! " he said.
" Look at your mother's face. Do you not think that
any one who ever saw that face in life would recognise
you, her living image ? "

" And her name was Eulalie, too. I never knew that be-
fore. 'Eulalie— Arthur ! ' My father's name was Arthur ? "

" Yes," said Mr. Rohan, sorrowfully. " His name was
Arthur."

" Arthur !— Arthur ! " she repeated softly. " I like the
name."

" You like it, Eulalie. Is it for the sake of the father.

54

A wife's tragedy.

you have never seen, or the young man downstairs, whom
you have seen ? "

" Oh, grandpapa ! " was Eulalie's reproachful cry.

" My dear little girl, I can read your heart plainer,
perhaps, than you can yourself, ^ou must not fall in love
with this young man, Eulalie. It will be folly — worse
than folly — madness — for you ever to let yourself love him
or any one else."

" Grandpapa ! " rather indignantly, " I never thought
of falling in love with him ! "

" No, my poor dear, you never thought of it, I dare say.
But it may happen for all that ; and you cannot prevent
him from admiring and loving you. That is why I
wished you to return to Eden Lawn the other night —
that is why I wish you to go still."

" Would it be so very dreadful, then," Eulalie asked, a
little embarrassed, and not looking up, " if he — if I — I
mean if we did ? "

" Yes," said Mr. Rohan, solemnly. " It would be
dreadful, circumstanced as you are. I shall tell you all
very soon ; until then, you must neither give nor take
any promises from any man. When what I have to tell
is told, you shall be as free as air — ^you shall do what you
please, go where you like, act as your own conscience may
suggest. And now go to your room, my darling, for it is
very late, and remember me in your innocent prayers ? "

He kissed her, and led her to the door; and as she
walked down the hall to her room, she heard him lock
himself in. She was hopelessly mystified and dazed, poor
child ! and the blight of that fearful unknown secret was
falling upon her already. She might go to her room, but
it was to cry herself to sleep like a little child,

Mr. Rohan did not appear in the drawing-room for the
remainder of the week. The excitement of that night
threw him into a kind of low nervous fever, that kept
him in his own apartment, and kept Eulalie there most
of the time, too. She was the best and most devoted of
pulses, rea^ding and singing to him, scarcely ever from his

BATTLING WITH FATE.

55

iside. But Arthur Sutherland saw the sad, pale face that
he remembered so brightly beautiful, and pitied her every
day more and more.

He, too, was battling with fate, and failing as miserably
as we all do in that hopeless struggle. For he found him-
self thinking a great deal more of this Creole heiress than
was at all wise or prudent, considering he was not in love
with her, and never meant to be. Those large, starry
black eyes ; those floating ink-black curls, soft and fea-
therly as floss silk ; that dainty, fairy form, and that soft,
sweet voice, haunted him too much by night and by day
for his own peace of mind. He wanted to be true to his
blue-eyed, golden-haired ideal ; he wanted to go back to
New York and marry Miss Yansell. And, wanting to do
all this, he yet lingered and lingered at Maplewood, and
found it more and more difficult every day to tear him-
self from the enchanted spot. He did not want to marry
a woman with big black eyes and a dark skin ; he did
not want to marry a foreigner ; he did not want to marry
any one about whom there hung the faintest shadow of
mystery or secrecy. And yet he lingered at Maplewood,
fascinated by that lovely Creole face, and the spell of
that musical voice, watching for her coming with feverish
impatience, and chafing at her absence or delay. He did
not want to fall in love with her himself, but he hated
Philip Sutherland with a most savage hatred for having
had that misfortune. He could not help admiring her,
he said to himself ; no one could, any more than they
could help admiring an exquisite painting or the marble
Yenus de Medicis ; but he meant to be faithful to the old
ideal, and make his pale saint with the halo of golden
hair Mrs. Arthur Sutherland. Was he not as good as en-
gaged to Isabel ? What business had those raven tresses
and dark oriental 'eyes perpetually to come and disturb
all his waking and sleeping dreams ? He battled con-
scientiously with his fate — or fancied he did — and the
more he battled, the more ' and more he thought pf
JEulalie !

CHAPTER V.

fate's victory.

IN the very plain parlour of a very unpretending house,
in a very quiet street of that lively little tree-shaded
city, Portland, Maine, there sat, one lovely afternoon in
June, a woman busily sewing.

The woman sat at the open window, and the window
commanded an exquisite view of beautiful Oasco Bay, but
she never once stopped in her work to glance at it. Per-
haps she had no time to spare ; perhaps Casco Bay was a
very old song ; or perhaps its sunlit beauty was beyond
the power of her soul to appreciate. She sat and stitched
and stitched and stitched, with dull, monotonous rapidity,
on the child's dress she was making, a faded and fretted-
looking creature, with pale hair and eyes, and shrunk,
thin features. She was dressed in rusty black, and wore
a widow's cap, and her name was Mrs. Sutherland — Lucy
Sutherland's mother. Two or three small children rolled
over on the thread-bare carpet, playing noisily with rag
dolls and with tops, and two or three more of a larger
growth were down in the kitchen, regaling themselves
with bread and meat, after school.

It needed no second glance at the worn-out carpet, the
rheumatic chairs, the shabby sofa, the cracked looking-
glass, and the seedy garments, to tell you this family were
very poor. They were very poor, and of that class of
poor most to be pitied, who have seen " better days," poor
souls ! and who struggle, and pinch, and tell lies, and eat
their hearts out, trving to keep up appearances. They

fate's victory.

57

were in mourning for the husband and father, half-brother
to the late James Sutherland, Esquire, of Maplewood, as
Mrs. Sutherland never was tired telling her neighbors.

They had been very poor in his lifetime, for he was of
dissipated habits ; but they were poorer now, and Mrs.
Sutherland had no time to admire Casco Bay, for patching
and darning, and making and mending, from week's end
to week's end. There were six besides Lucy ; and Lucy
and her salary, as paid companion to the lady of Maple-
wood, was their chief support.

Lucy Sutherland's life had been a hard one. Six years
before this June afternoon she had gone first to live at
Maplewood — gone to eat the bitter bread of dependence.
But Lucy Sutherland was morbidly proud ; Mrs. Suther-
land, of Maplewood, haughty and over-bearing ; and
Augusta too much given to fly out into gusts of bad
temper. Of course, the cold pride and the hot temper
clashed at once, and Mrs. Sutherland swept stormily in,
boxed Augusta's ears, and scolded Lucy stoutly. Lucy
retorted with flashing eyes, and banged the door in the
great lady's face, packed up her belongings, and was home
before night. But there were too many at home already.
Lucy went out once more as a nursery-governess ; and for
four years led the wretched, slavish life that nursery-
governesses mostly lead. She was perpetually losing her
place, and perpetually trying the next one, and only
seeming to find each worse than the last. Four years of
this sort of life broke down and subdued Lucy Sutherland
enough even to suit Mrs. J ames Sutherland, of Maplewood.
That lady, finding herself very lonely when Augusta went
away to school, and remembering how useful she had
found Lucy, presented herself at the house in Portland
one day, and asked her to come back. Lucy was out of
place, as usual. Mrs. Sutherland oflfered a higher figure
than she had ever received as nursery-governess, and
Lucy, neither forgiving nor forgetting the past, took pru-
dence for her counsellor, and went back. Whatever she

58

A wife's tkagedy.

had to endure, she did endure, with stony patience — her
heart rebelling fiercely against destiny, but her lips never
uttering one complaint. She had been the chief support
of the family since then, not through any very strong
sisterly love, but because of that very pride that would
have them keep up appearances to the last gasp. She
did not visit them very often ; she wrote to her mother
once a month, a brief letter, inclosing a remittance ; and
she endured her life with hard, icy coldness, that was
anything but the virtue of resignation.

Mrs. Sutherland, sitting sewing this afternoon, was
listening for the postman's knock. It was the time for
Lucy's letter, and the remittance was truly needed. While
she watched, a cab drove up to the door ; a tall young
lady, dressed in black, and wearing a black gauze vail
over her face, alighted, and rang the bell. The next
moment, there was a shout from the girls and boys below
of—

" Oh, mamma ! Here's Lucy ! "

Mrs. Sutherland, dropping her work, met her eldest
daughter in the doorway, and kissed her.

The children, playing on the floor, suspended their game
to flock around their sister. Lucy kissed them one after
the other, and then pushed them away.

"There! there!" she said, impatiently. "Run away
now. Bessy, don't stand on my dress. Franky, go along
to your tops, and let me alone. I am hot, and tired to
death !"

She dropped into a seat, still pushing them away — her
face looking pale, and haggard, and careworn. Mrs.
Sutherland saw her daughter was in no very sweet temper,
and hustled the noisy flock out of the room, and came
back and sat down with a face full of anxiety.

"What is it, Lucy, dear?" she asked. "Have you left
your Aunt Anna's again ? "

They were very much alike, this mother and daughter
— alike outwardly and inwardly. Lucy Sutherland
looked at her mother, and broke into a hard laugh,

fate's victory.

59

"Your welcome is not a very cordial one, mamma! You
ask me if I have lost my place — hasn't that a very pleas-
ant housemaid-like sound ? — before you invite me to take
off my bonnet. I suppose if I had lost my place you
would find me another before dark."

Mrs. Sutherland took up her sewing and recommenced.

"Take off your bonnet, Lucy," said she. " We have
not much ; but whatever we have, you are welcome to
your share of it. Have you quarrelled with your Aunt
Anna?"

" No, T have not quarrelled with my Aunt Anna ! "
replied Lucy with sneering emphasis; for Lucy never
deigned to call her rich relative aunt; "but my Aunt Anna
has sent me home on her service for something not to be
had in St. Mary's, and which is not worth while sending
for to Boston. I think I will take off my bonnet, mother,
since you are so pressing ! "

Mrs. Sutherland took no notice of her daughter's ill-
temper. She was too much dependent on Lucy to afford
the luxury of quarrelling with her ; so she laid aside her
bonnet and mantle, and produced some crackers and a
glass of wine.

^" I don't want anything," said Lucy, impatiently.
" Drink the wine yourself, mamma, you look as if you
needed it. What are you making there ? "

" A dress for Fanny ! The child is in tatters, and not
fit to go to school. I had to get it on credit."

" Pay for it with this," said Lucy, throwing her wallet
into her mother's lap. "There is fifty dollars. Mrs.
Sutherland is charitable enough to give me all her old
black silks that are too good to give to the cook, and I
make them over and save my money."

" How long are you going to stay with us, Lucy dear?"

" Very delicately put, mamma ! But don't be afraid, I
return to-morrow by the earliest train."

" And what is the news from Maplewood ? " inquired
Mrs, Sutherland, " Has Arthur returned ? "

60

A wife's tragedy.

" Yes, Arthur has returned."

She spoke so sullenly, and with a face that darkened
so ominously that her mother looked up from her work
once more.

" How long is it since he came ? " she asked, almost
afraid to ask anything in her daughter's present frame of
mind.

" Not a month yet ; but loug enough to make a fool of
himself ! He and Phil. Sutherland came together ; and
Phil., perhaps, is the greatest fool of the two. He is the
noisiest, at least."

" My dear Lucy ! how strangely you talk ! What do
you mean ? In what manner are they making fools of
themselves ? "

Lucy Sutherland laughed a hard andfbitter laugh ; but
her eyes were flashing blue flame, and her lips were white
with passion.

" Oh, about a pretty little puppet ^they have there, mo-
ther— a wax doll with a little waist and dark skin, and
big vacant black eyes — an insipid little nonentity, who
can lisp puerile baby-talk about grandpapa and Cuba, and
who is to be heiress of countless thousands. They are
making fools of themselves about her, mamma. It is for
this little foreign simpleton that they are both going mad!"

Mrs. Sutherland was a woman of penetration, but not
of much tact. She saw at once that something more than
mere feminine spleen was at the bottom of this bitter,
reckless speech, and was unwise enough to utter her
thoughts.

" I know you always liked Arthur," she said. " And I
hoped, when he returned, and you were thrown so much
together, it might be a match. Lucy ! Good Heavens ! "

She started up suddenly in consternation ; for Lucy, at
the words, had broken into a violent fit of hysterical sob-
bing. It was so unexpected, so foreign to the nature of
one so self -restrained and calm, this stormy gust of pas-
sionate weeping, that her mother could only stand and
look on in blank dismay.

fate's victoby.

61

It did not last long, it was too violent to last. Lucy
Sutherland looked up, and dashed the tears fiercely away.

" There ! " she said. " It is all over, and you need not
wear that frightened face. It is not likely to happen
again. I am a fool, I dare say ; but I think I should go
mad if I could not cry out sometimes like this. I am
not made of wood or stone, after all, though I gain credit
for it ; and this is all that keeps me from going wild."

" My dear girl ! " her mother anxiously said. " My
dear Lucy, there is something more than common the
cause of this. Tell mother ! "

" It is only this, then," cried Lucy, passionately, " that
I hate Arthur Sutherland, and I hate Eulalie Kohan ; and
I hate myself for being the wretched, pitiful fool I am ! "

Mrs. Sutherland listened to this wildly-desperate speech
in grave silence ; and, when it was over, sat down and re-
sumed her sewing, still in silence. Her woman's penetra-
tion saw the truth — that her quiet daughter was furiously
jealous of this foreign beauty.

" She always was more or less in love with Arthur," the
mother mused. " And the ruling passion of her life was
to be mistress of Maplewood. She has found out how
hopeless her dream has been, and this insane outcry is the
natural result. It is not like Lucy, and it will soon be
over."

Mrs. Sutherland was right. The first wild outburst
was over, and Lucy was becoming her old self again.

" I suppose you think I am going mad, mamma," she
said, after a pause ; " and I think I should if I could not
cry out to some one. I wanted to be rich. I wanted to
be Arthur Sutherland's wife, for your sake, and the child-
ren's sake, as well as for my own. But that is all over
now. He will marry this Creole heiress before long, if
something does not occur to prevent it."

" What should occur to prevent it ? " replied her mo-
ther.

" Arthur Sutherland's own pride, There is something

62

A wife's tragedy.

very strange, to say the very least, and very suspicious, in
the manner of this girl's grandfather, who seems to be her
only living relative. There is some mystery — some guilt,
I am positive — in his past history, which may be visited
yet on his granddaughter. He lives in constant dread of
something, and that something threatens her whom he
idolizes as only these old dotards ever do idolize. My
suspicions have been aroused from the first ; and if I fail
to find out what it means, it will be no fault of mine. I
hate you, Eulalie Rohan" — she exclaimed, clenching her
little hand, while her blue eyes flashed — "I hate you, and
Heaven help you if ever you are in my power ! "

In the misty twilight of the evening following this,
Lucy returned to Maplewood. There was a dinner-party
at the house, and the family and the guests were yet at
table. Sarah, the housemaid, told Miss Lucy this, while
arranging a little repast of strong tea and toast in the
young lady's room,and further informed her that Mr. Rohan
was not yet well enough to appear in the dining-room,
but that Miss Rohan was down-stairs, and was looking
beautiful. Even the very servants (she thought, bitterly)
were bewitched by the black eyes and exquisite face of
the Creole heiress ; while she was looked upon, perhaps,
as almost one of themselves.

Lucy drank her tea and ate her toast, and made her
toilet, and descended to the drawing room to report the
success of her mission to the lady of the house. Eulalie
was at the piano, looking beautiful indeed in amber silk,
and with rich gems flashing through the misty lace on her
neck and arms. There was a tinge of melancholy in the
large dark eyes, that added the only charm her beauty
lacked. And Lucy Sutherland hated her for that beauty,
and that costly dress, and those rare gems, with tenfold
intensity. She knew how her own common-place pretti-
ness of features and complexion paled into insignificance

fate's victoky.

63

beside the tropical splendour of such dusky beauty as
this ; and she envied her as only one jealous woman
can envy another, with an envy all the more furious for
every outward sign being suppressed.

Lucy reported her successful mission to Mrs. Suther-
land, and then retired to a remote corner, as a discreet
companion should. She saw the gentlemen enter the
room presently, and flock about the piano, and press Miss
Rohan to sing. Philip Sutherland was at their head ; but
Arthur, seeing the instrument besieged, went and sat
down by his mother. There were no lady-guests for him
to devote himself to, and the gentlemen were all engrossed
by the black-e3^ed pianiste. Lucy's remote corner was
not so very far off but that, by straining her ears, she
could hear the conversation between mother and son ;
and Lucy did not scruple to listen. The talk at first was
desultory enough. Mrs Sutherland crocheted, and her
son toyed with her coloured silk and made rambling re-
marks, but his gaze never wandered from the piano.

" He is thinking about her," thought Lucy, " though he
speaks of the heat and the dinner, and he will begin to
talk of her presently."

Lucy was right. Arthur was thinking of the Cuban
beauty, as he seemed always to be doing of late. He had
no idea of falling in love with her ; it was the very last
thing he wanted to do. He had come home determined
to dislike her — to have no yellow-skinned heiress forced
upon him by his mother ; and yet here he was walking
into the trap with his eyes wide open. He despised him-
self for his weakness, but that did not make him any
stronger. He wished his mother would broach the match-
making subject, that he might raise objections ; but she
never did. He wished now she would begin talking of
her, but she crocheted away as serenely as if match-mak-
ing had never entered her head, and he had to start the
subject himself.

" How long before Mr. Kohan leaves here ? " he asked,
carelessly.

64

A wife's tragedy.

" Not for months yet, I trust," replied his mother ; " he
promised to spend the summer with us. We should miss
Eulalie sadly."

" He will return to Cuba, I suppose, when he does leave
here ? "

" I presume so."

" What a lonely life Miss Rohan must lead there ! " said
Arthur, thoughtfully.

" Yes, it is lonely, poor child. Arthur," — looking up sud-
denly, and laying her hand on his arm — " why should Miss
Rohan return to Cuba ? "

" It is coming," thought Lucy setting her teeth.

" Why should she return, mother ? " said Arthur colour-
ing consciously, while he laughed. " Why should she not
return ? It is her home."

" I said why should Miss Rohan return. I say so still.
I have no objection to Eulalie's going to Cuba — only let
her go as Mrs. Arthur Sutherland."

" My dear mother ! "

Mrs. Sutherland smiled.

" That astonished look is very well feigned, Arthur, but
it does not deceive me. It is not the first time you have
thought on this subject ; though why it should take you
so long to debate, I confess, puzzles me. There never was
such a prize so easily to be won before. If you do not
bear it off, some one else will, and that speedily."

" But, my dear match-making mamma," remonstrated
her son, still laughing, " I do not like prizes too easily won.
It is the grapes that hang above one's head, not those ready
to drop into one's mouth, that we long for."

" Very well," said Mrs. Sutherland, gravely, " you will
please yourself. While you are struggling for the sour
grapes overhead, some wise man will step in and bear off
the prize within reach. It is your affair, not mine."

She closed her lips, and went industriously on with her
work. Arthur looked over at Miss Rohan, the shimmer of
whose amber silk dress and flashing ornaments he could
see between the dark garments qf the men about her.

fate's victory.

65

" After all, mother," he said, " is not your castle built on
Very empty air ? I may propose to Miss Rohan, and be
refused for my pains. The heiress of a millionaire is not
to be had for the asking."

" Very true ! You must take your chance of that. But
you know, Arthur, it is the grapes that hang highest you
prefer. Perhaps you will find Miss Rohan beyond your
reach after all."

Her son made no reply ; he had caught a glimpse of
Lucy's black barege dress, and crossed over to where she
sat at once.

" Why, Lucy, I didn't know you had returned," he cried.
You come and go like a pale, noiseless shadow, appear-
ing and disappearing when we least expect you."

A faint angry colour flushed into the girl's pale face, but
Arthur did not see it as he leaned over her chair.

" When did you arrive ? "

" About an hour ago."

" And how did you find the good people of Portland ?
Your mother and the little ones are well, I trust."
" Quite well, thank you ! "

" You should have made them a longer visit, Lucy. It
is rather unsatisfactory running home, and — "

He stopped abruptly in the middle of his own sentence.
He had been watching Eulalie and thinking of Eulalie all
the time he was talking. He had seen her leave the
piano five minutes before, and cross to the open windows,
and disappear in the moonlight, and Philip Sutherland
striding after her.

Arthur's brow darkened, and his face flushed. In some
strange, magnetic manner the conviction flashed upon him
that another was about to ask for the prize he would not
seek. If Philip Sutherland should succeed ! He turned
sick and giddy at the thought, and in one instant the
scales dropped from his eyes, and he saw the palpable
truth. He loved Eulalie Rohan ; and what he felt for
Isabel Vansell was only calm, placid admiration. He

66

A WII^JI'S TBAGEDY.

loved this glorious little beauty ; and now lie Was on tke
point of losing her, perhaps forever ! " How blessings
brighten as they take their flight." In that moment he
would have given all the wealth of the Sutherlands and
the Rohans combined to have forestalled his cousin
Philip.

Lucy Sutherland silently arose. She saw his ashen
face, and read his thoughts like a printed book. She,
too, by that mysterious rapport, guessed Philip's errand,
and from her heart of hearts prayed he might succeed.

The group gathered round the piano paid no attention
to them, as they went out through the open window,
upon the lawn, where the moonlight lay in silvery sheets.
Silently and by the same impulse, they turned down the
chestnut avenue that led to the terrace. Two minutes
and it came in sight, and they saw Eulalie Rohan stand-
ing by the low iron railing, her silk dress and the bril-
liants she wore flashing in the moon's rays, and the tang-
led black ringlets fluttering in the breeze. She wore a
large shawl, for she was a chilly little creature ; and, even
in that supreme moment Arthur could notice how grace-
fully she wore it, and how unspeakably lovely the dark
face was in the pale moonlight. The lilacs waved their
perfumed arms about her head, and she broke off" fragrant
purple bunches as she watched the placid moonlit ocean.
He saw all these minor details while he looked at Philip
Sutherland coming up to her, and breaking out vehement-
ly and at once with the story he had to tell. Such an
old, old story ; but heard for the first time, this June
night, by those innocent ears. Arthur Sutherland set his
teeth and clenched his fists, and felt a mad impulse to
spring upon his cousin and hurl him over the iron- work
into the sea. They both stood still — Lucy nearly as
white as her companion, but as calm as stone, and looked
at the scene. They were too far off" to hear what was
said ; but in the bright moonlight they saw Eulalie turn
away, and cover her face with her hands, and Philip fall

/

t*ATE^S VICTORY. 67

down on his knees at her feet. There was white despair
in every line of his face, and they knew what his answer
had been.

" She has refused him!" Arthur cried. "Thank God?"

" Let us go back to the house/' said Lucy, icily ; " Miss
Rohan might take us for eavesdroppers if she saw us
here."

She was deadly pale, and there was a strange, un-
natural glitter in her blue eyes ; but Arthur never once
looked at her or thought of her as they walked back to
the house.

" I will ask Eulalie Rohan to be my wife, before the
sun goes down to-morrow," was his mental determination
by the way.

Miss Rohan returned to the house ten minutes after,
looking pale, and w^th a startled look in her great dark
eyes that reminded Arthur of a frightened gazelle. She
quitted the drawing-room almost immediately after, to
see if her grandfather had been made comfortable for the
night, and did not return ; and the long drawing-room
became all at once to Arthur Sutherland as empty as a
desert.

It was late when the guests departed, although their
host was the reverse of entertaining, [and he was free to
go out and let the cold night-air blow away the fever in
his veins. He felt no desire to sleep, and he wandered
aimlessly through the far-spreading grounds of his an-
cestral home, tormented by conflicting doubts, and hopes,
and fears. *

About ten minutes'' walk from the grassy terrace, half-
buried in a jungle of tall fern and rank grass, and shaded
by gloomy elm-trees, there was the ruins of an old sum-
mer-house. A lonely and forsaken summer-house, where
no one ever went now, but a chair of twisted branches
and a rickety table showed that it once had its day.
Lying on the damp, grass-grown floor of this old summer-
house, his arms folded and his face resting on them, lay
poor Philip Sutherland, doing battle with his despair.

CHAPTER VI.

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT.

" 'T WILL propose to Eulalie to-morrow ! " was Arthur

I Sutherland's last thought, as sometime in the small
hours he laid his head upon his pillow, to toss about rest-
lessly until daybreak.

" I will ask her to be my wife to-day ! " was his first
thought as he rose in the morning. " There is no use
in struggling against destiny ; and it is my destiny to
love this beautiful, dark-eyed creature beyond anything
in this lower world."

The heir of Maplewood made a most careful toilet that
morning, and never was so little pleased with his success.
It was still early when he descended the stairs, and
passed out of the hall-door to solace himself with a
matutinal cigar, and think how he should say what he
had to say. Conscience gave him some twinges still, and
would not let him forget that in some manner he stood
pledged to Miss Vansell, and that it was hardly honour-
able to throw her over like this. The still, small voice
was so clamorous that he turned savage at last, and told
Conscience to mind her own business and let him alone.
After that Conscience had no more to say ; and he went
off into long, delicious, day-dreams of the bright future,
when this beautiful Creole girl should be his wife.

The ringing of the breakfast bell awoke him from his
castle-building. He flung away his cigar, and went into
the house, expecting for certain to find Miss Rohan in the
breakfast-room, She had never been absent once since

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT.

60

his return home. The sweet, dark face, shaded by that
glorious fall of perfumed hair, and lit by those starry
eyes, had always shone upon him across the damask and
china and silver of the breakfast service. But, do things
ever turn out in this world as we plan them ? Eulalie
was not there. His mother and sister and Lucy alone
were in the room. As he entered, a housemaid came in
at an opposite door, with Miss Rohan's compliments, and
would they please not to wait breakfast ; she had a head-
ache, and would not come down.

Mrs. Sutherland dispatched a cup of strong tea and
some toast to Miss Rohan's room b}' the housemaid, and
the quartette sat down to the morning meal. A chill of
disappointment had fallen upon Arthur. She had never
been absent before. Was it an omen of evil ? He had
been so confident of meeting her, and he was disap-
pointed. Was this disappointment the forerunner of a
greater still ?

The chill seemed contagious : all were silent and con-
strained ; and the breakfast was unspeakably dismal. Mrs.
Sutherland seemed absent and preoccupied ; Lucy sat
frigidly mute ; and Augusta was, I regret to say, intensely
sulky. Poor Augusta ! She alone knew the secret mo-
tive prompting that postscript inviting Philip Sutherland
down to Maple wood ; and she alone knew how cruelly
that hidden hope had been disappointed. She had dressed
prettily, and looked charming — or at least as charming as
that snub nose of hers would permit ; and it had been all
in vain. How could Philip Sutherland see her rosy cheeks,
and dimples, and round blue eyes, while he was dazzled
and blinded by the dark splendour of that Creole face ?
She had not been a spectator of that moonlight scene on
the grassy terrace ; but she knew as well as Lucy or Ar-
thur what had happened last night, and what had occa-
sioned the absence of Eulalie and Philip this morning.
Therefore, Miss Sutherland was in the sulks, and had red
rims rounds her blue eyes, and that poor snub nose swollen,
as people's will when they cry half the night.

70

A wife's TKAGEDY.

The meal was half over before Mrs. Sutherland, in her
preoccupation, missed Philip, and inquired for him.

" Philip has gone," said Lucy, quietly.

" Gone ! Gone where ? " demanded her aunt, staring.

" Back to New York, I presume. He left very early
this morning, before any of you were up."

Mrs. Sutherland still stared.

" Back to New York so suddenly ! Arthur, did he tell
you he was going ? "
''Not a word."

" Where did you see him, Lucy ? " inquired the aston-
ished lady of the house.

" Leaving his room about six o'clock. I generally come
down-stairs about that time ; and, as I opened my door, I
encountered him quitting his room, with his travelling-
bag in his hand. I asked him where he was going, and
he answered, 'To perdition! Anywhere out of this
place!'"

Lucy repeated Philip Sutherland's forcible words as
calmly as if it had been the most matter-of-fact answer
in the world. She said nothing of the wildly-haggard
face he had worn ; but a blank silence fell on all, and his
name was not mentioned again until the dreary meal was
over.

Arthur Sutherland passed the bright morning-hours in
aimless wanderings in and out of the house, and under
the green arcades of the leafy groves, waiting impatiently
for Miss Rohan to appear. He waited for some hours in
vain ; and, when at last she did appear, it was only ano-
ther disappointment. He had sauntered down through
the old orchard, idly breaking off twigs, and trying to read
the morning paper, when the sound of carriage -wheels
brought him back. For his pains, he just got a glimpse
of his mother and Eulalie and Mr. Rohan, as the carriage
rolled away. If indisposition prevented Mr. and Miss
Rohan from appearing in the breakfast-room, they were
•yvell enough to take an airing in the carriage, it seemed.

I

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT, 71

That was the longest day Arthur Sutherland ever re-
Inembered in his life. He kept wandering aimlessly in
and out, smoking no end of cigars, and talking by fits and
starts to Lucy, who was about as genial and sympathetic as
an icicle. The first dinner-bell had rung, and the long
red lances of the sunset were slanting through the chest-
nuts and maples when the carriage-party returned. They
all went up-stairs at once ; and Arthur entered the dining-
room to wait, feverishly, her entrance.

There was a letter awaiting Mr. Rohan, bearing the
New York postmark. He opened it, and his face clouded
as he read it. It was written by the solicitor of one Mrs.
Lawrence, who lay dangerously ill, and requesting him to
come to New York at once if he wished to see her before
she died.

Mr. Eohan laid down the letter with a troubled face.
Mrs. Lawrence was a relative — a distant one — but his
only living relative save his granddaugh :er, and the re-
quest must be obeyed. The trouble was about Eulalie.
How could he hurry her off on such short notice, and how
could he leave her behind ? He walked up and down his
room in perturbed thought, revolving the difficulty, and at
a loss whether to take or leave her.

" She does not wish to leave this place," he thought ;
" why should I drag her away, poor child ? The time has
come for her to know all — dreadful as it will be for me to
tell it ; why not leave her here and let her learn the hor-
rible truth when I am gone ? It would break my heart
to see her first despair ; if I let her find it out in my ab-
sence, the shock will be over before I return. Yes, I will
go and Eulalie shall remain, and I shall leave in writing
the miserable story that must be told. My poor darling !
my poor little innocent child ! may heaven help you to
bear the misery of your lot ! "

The second bell rang, and Mr. Rohan descended to the
dining-room, trying to conceal all signs of agitation. His
granddaughter was there, talking to Arthur Sutherland,

n

A wife's TRAdEbY.

whose devoted manner there was no mistaking. The signs
he could not fail to read deepened the old man's trouble,
and his voice shook painfully in spite of himself as he an-
nounced his departure next day.

Every one was surprised. Eulalie uttered a little cry
of distress.

" Going to New York, grandpapa ? Are you going to
take me ? "

" No, my dear," the old man said ; and Arthur, who had
turned very pale, breathed again. " You could not be
ready ; and, as I hope to return in a week, it would not
be worth while."

Almost immediately after dinner, Mr. Kohan returned
to his room, pleading the truth — letters to write. But
fate had declared against Arthur that day. Carriage-
wheels rattled up to the door almost instantly after, and
some half-dozen of his mother's most intimate friends
came in. There were three young ladies, who at once
took possession of Eulalie, and all chance of saying what
he had to say was at an end for that evening.

Arthur Sutherland being a gentleman — what is better,
a Christian — did not swear ; but I am afraid he wished
the three Misses Albermarle at Jericho. They were tall
young ladies, with voluminous drapery and balloon-like
crinoline, and his little black-eyed divinity was quite lost
among them. The oldest Miss Albermarle presently made
a dead set at him, and held him captive until it was time
to depart ; and then, when he came back from escorting
them to their carriage, he just got a glimpse of Eulalie's
fairy figure flitting up-stairs to her room.

No, to her grandfather's, for she tapped at that first to
say good-night. He was writing still, she could see, when
he opened the door, and the old troubled look was at its
worst. He would not let her come in ; he kissed her and
dismissed her, and returned to his writing.

It was a very long letter — written slowly, and in deep
agitatipn. Sometimes his tears blistered the paper ; some-

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT.

73

times he threw down his pen and covered his face with
his hands, while his whole frame was convulsed. But he
always went on again — scratch, scratch, scratch ; the in-
exorable pen set down the words, and as the clock was
striking two his task was ended. He folded the long,
closely-written letter, placed it in an envelope, addressed
, to his granddaughter, and locked it in his desk.

" My poor, poor girl ! " he said ; " my little helpless
lamb ! How will you live after reading this ! "

The Cuban millionaire passed a miserably restless night
— too much agitated by what he had written, and the
memories it had recalled, to sleep. Not that the tragical
story of the past was ever absent from his sleeping or
waking fancy, but this written record was like the tearing
open of half -healed wounds. He could not sleep ; and he
was glad when the red dawn came glimmering into the
east, to rise and go out, that the morning breeze might
cool his hot head.

The sun arose dazzlingly. The scent of the long, leafy
avenues, the saline breath of the sea, was so refreshing,
the songs of countless birds so inspiriting, that he could
hardly fail to benefited by his morning walk. When the
breakfast-bell rang, he entered the house with a face even
brighter than usual, and gave Eulalie, who came tripping
to meet him, her morning kiss, with a smile.

" By what train do you go ? " Mrs. Sutherland asked,
as they sat down to breakfast.

The twelve o'clock. I have a little business to trans-
act in Boston, and shall remain there over night."

Mr. Kohan remained in the drawing-room the best part
of the morning, while his granddaughter sat at the piano,
and sang and played for him incessantly. She and Mrs.
Sutherland were to see him off : and just before it was
time to start, he called her into his room, and closed the
door. Eulalie came in, looking darkly-bewitching in a
little Spanish, hat with long plumes, and a shawl of black
lace, trailing along her bright silk dress. The smile faded

74-

A wife's tragedy.

from her red lips at sight of grandpapa's face, and she
glanced apprehensively from him to a large sealed letter
he held in his hand.

" Eulalie," he said, steadying his voice by an effort, " I
promised that you should speedily learn the story that
must be the secret of your life, I could not sit down and
tell it to you — I could not ; but I have written it here,
and to-night or to-morrow you will read it, and learn all.
My poor little darling, if I could spare you the shock of
this revelation with my life, God knows how freely that
life would be given ! But I cannot ; you must know
what is set down here. And all I can do is, to pray that
the knowledge may not blast your whole life as it has
blasted mine."

" Grandpapa ! grandpapa ! is it so very dreadful, then ! "

" Yes, poor child, it is dreadful. Say a prayer, Eulalie,
before you open this letter, for strength and fortitude to
bear its contents."

She held the letter without looking at it. Her dilated
eyes were fixed on his face — her parted lips were mutely
appealing to him. He took both her hands and clasped
them in his.

" Ask me nothing now, my darling. It is all written
there. I shall return in a week, and you shall remain
here, or go home, just as you please. May all good angels
have you in their keeping, my precious child, until I
return."

He kissed her passionately, and led her towards her
own room.

" Lock up your letter," he said ; " and bring the key
with you. No eye must rest on this history but your own."

He quitted her and descended the stairs. The car-
riage was in waiting, and so was Mrs. Sutherland, in a
Parisian bonnet and cashmere shawl. She was going
with Eulalie, to see him off, and a groom was just leading
round Mr. Sutherland's horse.

"Your guard of honour is going to be a large one,"

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT.

75

laughed Mrs. Sutherland. " Arthur insists on escorting
us to the depot. Where is Eulalie ? Ah ! here she is at
last ; and your grandpapa has no time to spare, Miss
Rohan."

They entered the carriage, and drove away, Arthur
riding beside them, determined this day should not pass
without his speaking. They stood on the platform,
watching the train out of sight, and then returned to the
carriage.

" Crying ! you foolish child ! " exclaimed Mrs. Suther-
land ; " and grandpapa only going for a week ! Come ! I
shall not permit this ! I am going shopping in the vil-
lage, and afterward I have some calls to make, and you
shall accompany me. That will cheer you up."

Eulalie would have excused herself if she could, and
gone directly back to Maplewood. She was dying to read
that mysterious letter, and learn her grandfather's terrible
secret ; but there was nothing for it but submission. So
the shopping was done, and the calls made, with Arthur
still dutifully in attendance ; and the sunset was blazing
itself out in the sky before they returned.

A red and wrathful sunset. The day had been oppres-
sively hot, and the sun lurid and crimson in a brassy sky.
There was not a breath of air stirring, and there was an
unnatural greenish glare in the atmosphere, ominous of
coming storm. The trees shivered at intervals, as if they
felt already the tempest to come ; the glassy and black-
ening sea moaned as it washed up over the sands ; the
frightened birds cowered in their snug nests, and over the
paralyzed earth, the hot, brazen sky hung like a burning
roof. Eulalie glanced fearfully around as she was helped
from the carriage by Arthur.

" We are going to have a storm," he said, answering her
startled glance ; " and that very soon."

It wanted but a quarter of seven, Eulalie's watch told
her ; and she hastened after Mrs. Sutherland, to change
her dress. She resigned herself into the hands of her

76

A wife's tragedy.

maid, with a sigh of resignation —there was no time for
letter-reading now — and went down-stairs, when the
dinner-bell rang. But dinner on such a stifling evening
was little better than a meaningless ceremony of sitting
down and getting up again. Eulalie, accustomed to a
tropical clime, felt as if she were gasping for air, as if
she could not breathe, and passed out through the open
drawing-room window, down to the terrace. Now was
Arthur's chance. Fortune, that had so long taken a
malicious pleasure in balking him, was in a favourable
mood at last. He arose, with a heart beating thick and
fast, and strode out after her, feeling that the supreme
moment had come. He could see her misty white dress
fluttering in and out among the trees, and came up to her
just as she leaned over the iron railing, to catch the
faintest breath from the sea. The lurid twilight was fiery-
red yet, in the west, but all the rest of the sky looked
like hot brass shutting down over their heads. Eulalie
lifted her dark eyes to his face, in awe, as he stood beside
her.

" How hot it is," she said ; " and what an awful sky.
The very sea seems holding its breath, and waiting for
something fearful ! "

" The storm is very near," said Arthur ; " the sky over
there looks like a sea of blood."

There was something in his voice that made Eulalie
look at him instead of at the blood-red sky ; and Arthur
Sutherland broke out at once with what he had followed
her there to say. That passionate avowal was the first
he had ever uttered in his life ; and the crimson west, and
the lurid atmosphere, and the black, heaving sea swam in
a hot mist before his eyes, and the scheme of creation
seemed suspended, not awaiting the coming storm, but
the answer of this black-eyed Creole girl.

*****
Mrs, Sutherland, sitting in the entrance of the bay win-

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT.

77

dow, too languid to fan herself, this oppressive June even-
ing, was disturbed five minutes after the departure of her
son and Miss Rohan by the announcement of a visitor.
A visitor at such an abnormal evening was certainly the
last thing Mrs. Sutherland expected or desired ; but the
visitor was shown in, and proved to be the Reverend Cal-
vin Masterson, pastor of the fashionable church of St.
Mary's. The Rev. Calvin had come to solicit a donation
toward a new pulpit and sounding-board and being anxi-
ous to complete the affair as soon as possible, had ventured
out this sultry evening to Maplewood.

Mrs. Sutherland, who had long ago set the Rev. Calvin
down as a very desirable husband for Augusta, subsci'ibed
liberally ; and knowing Eulalie's purse was ever open to
contributions of all kinds, turned round to look foi'her;
but Eulalie was not to be seen. Lucy Sutherland, sifting
pale and cool through all the heat, came out of the shad-
ows to inform her Miss Rohan had gone out.

" Then go after her, Lucy," said Mrs Sutherland. You
will find her in the terrace, I dare say."

Lucy, who never hurried, walked leisurely down the
chestnut avenue. Long before she came to the terrace,
she could see the small, white figure, with the long, jetty
curls, and that other tall form beside it. There could be
no mistaking that they stood there as plighted husband
and wife now. If any doubt remained, a few words of
Arthur's, caught as she neared them, would have ended it.

" And I may speak to your grandfather, then, my dear-
est girl, as soon as he returns ?"

Perhaps Lucy's pale face grew a shade paler, perhaps
her thin lips compressed themselves more firmly; but
that was all. An instant after, she was standing beside
them, delivering in her usual quiet voice Mrs. Suther-
land's message.

" Masterson, eh ? " cried Arthur. "He must be in a
tremendous hurry for the sounding-board, when he comes
up from St. Mary's such a hot evening as this."

78

A wife's tragedy.

He drew Eulalie's hand within his arm, with a face
quite radiant with his new joy, and led her away. Lucy
followed slowly, her lips still tightly compressed, and a
bright light shining in her blue eyes. She did not re-
turn to the drawing-room. She went straight to her own
apartment, and sat down by the open window, and
watched the starless night blacken down.

An hour after, the Rev. Calvin Masterson drove away ;
and, as the clock struck ten, she heard Eulalie, Augusta,
and Arthur come up-stairs.

" Mr. Masterson will have a dark night for his home-
ward drive," Arthur was saying. " We will have the
storm before morning."

CHAPTER YII.

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

EULALIE ROHAN went to her room that hot June
evening with a new and delicious sense of joy
thrilling through every fibre of her heart. She had taken
life all along as a bright summer-holiday, whose dark-
est cloud was a shadow of the past in her beloved grand-
father's face ; but, to- night, the world was all Eden, and
she the happiest Eve that had ever danced in the sun-
shine. She had never known, until she stood listening
to his avowal on the terrace, how much she had grown
to love Arthur Sutherland. She had never dreamed how
near and dear he had become, or why she had rejected
poor Philip ; but she passed from childhood to woman-
hood in one instant, and knew all now.

The wax tapers, held up by fat Cupids in the frame of
her mirror, were lit when she entered, and Mademoiselle
Trinette, her maid, stood ready to make her young lady's
night-toilet ; but Eulalie was not going to sleep just yet,
and dismissed her with a smile.

" It is too hot to go to bed, Trinette," she said. " I
shall not retire for an hour or two, and you need not wait
up. Good night."

The femme-de-chamhre quitted the room, and Eulalie
seated herself by the window. The night was moonless
and starless, and would have been pitch-dark but for a
lurid phosphorescent glare in the atmosphere. In the
x^ftnatural stillness of the night, she could hear the shiver-

so

A wife's tragedy.

ing of the trees, the slipping of a snake in the under-
brush, or the uneasy ihittering of a bird in its nest. No
breath of air came through the wide-open casement, and
the waves boomed dully on the shore below with an
ominous roar.

In her white dress and dark black ringlets, Eulalie sat
by the window and thought how very happy she was,
and how very happy she was going to be. She mused
over the glorious picture of the future Arthur had painted
while they stood in the red twilight of the terrace, the
long continued tour through beautiful Italy, fair France,*
sunny Spain, and picturesque Switzerland ; of the winters
spent in her Cuban home among the magnolia and the
acacia groves, and the summers passed here at Maple-
wood. It was such a beautiful and happy life to look
forward to — almost too happy she feared — too much of
Heaven to be enjoyed on earth.

An hour had passed — two hours — before Eulalie arose
from the window and prepared to retire. As she stood
before the glass, combing out her magnificent hair, her
eye fell on the little rosewood desk in which she had
locked that mysterious letter given her by her grand-
father. She had forgotten all about it until now, and
the memory sent a thrill of vague fear to her very heart.
That mysterious secret that he told her would darken
her whole life as it had darkened his — what could it be ?
She unlocked the desk and took it out with fingers that
trembled a little, and sat looking at it with a supersti-
tion."^ terror of opening it.

How foolish I am ! " she thought, at last ; " it cannot
be so very terrible after all. Poor grandpapa is morbid,
and aggravates its importance. It is no record of crime,
he says ; it is no hereditary disease, physical or mental ;
and if it be the loss of wealth, even of my whole fortune,
I shall not regret that much. I often think I should like
to be poor, and wear pretty print dresses and linen collars,
and live in a little white cottage with green window-^

STKtJCK: Rt LIGHTNING.

81

sliuiters, like those in St. Mary's, and take tea with
Arthur every evening at six o'clock. I will say a prayer,
as grandpapa told me, and read this letter, and go to
bed."

There was a lovdy picture of the Mater Dolorosa hang-
ing above her bed. Eulalie knelt down before it and
murmured an Ave Maria, as she had been wont to do in
her convent-days ; and chen, drawing a low chair close to
the dressing-table, opened the letter. It was very long
— half a dozen closely- vvritten sheets — and signed, "Your
heart-broken grandfather ; " and Eulalie, taking up the
first shee^ began to read.

Arthur Sutherland felt no more inclination for sleep
this oppressive summer-night than Eulalie Rohan, The
closeness of the air seemed to stifle him, and he stepped
out of the open corridor to the piazza that ran round the
second story. He could see the lights from the other
chamber windows glaring across the dusky gloom, and he
knew the others were as wakeful as himself. It was one
of those abnormal nights — not made for sleep — in which
you lie awake and toss about frantically, as if your pillows
were red-hot and your bed a rack.

" I feel," he thought — as he leaned against a slender
column overrun with clematis, and lit a cigar — " I feel as
though something were about to happen. I feel as though
this intense happiness were too supreme to last —as though
the tie that binds me and Eulalie were but a single hair.
Good Heavens ! if I should lose her — if something should
happen to take her from me ! "

He turned faint and giddy at the bare thought. Poor
slighted Philip ! he could afford to pity him now. Where
was he this hot, dark night, and how was he bearing the
blow he had received ? It was so impossible not to love
this beautiful black-eyed enchantress that Philip was not
so much to blame after all.

" I will run up to New York when Mr. Rohan returns

82

A wife's tragedy.

and I have spoken to him, and hunt the poor lad up/^
mused Arthur. " I wish I had not brought him down.
But how was I to know that my motlier's heiress would
turn out a httle black-eyed angel ! "

He walked slowly up and down the piazza, smoking
and thinking for over two hours. One by one, the lighted
windows darkened — Eulalie's alone shone bright still. He
wondered what she could be doing to keep her up so long ;
and while he watched her window, there shot athwart
the sultry gloom a sheet of blue flame that almost blinded
him. A moment's pause, and then a roll of thunder, as if
the heavens were rending asunder. A great drop of
rain fell on his face, then another and another, thick and
fast ; and the storm threatening so long had burst in its
might.

Arthur stepped hastily through the window and closed
it. A second sheet of lurid flame leaped out like a two-
edged sword, and lit up, with an unearthly glare, the
woods and meadows and gardens of Maplewood. A
second roll of thunder, nearer and more deafening than
the first, and a deluge of rain. The sky had kept its pro-
mise, and the tempest and rain and lightning and thunder
was appalling in its fury. Arthur Sutherland put his
hand over his dazzled eyes, feeling as though the inces-
sant blaze of the lightning were striking him blind. Flash
followed flash, almost without a second's intermission,
blue, blinding, ghostly — the continual roll of the thunder
was horrible, and the rain fell with a roar like a water-
fall.

"Good Heavens !" thought Arthur, "what awful light-
ning ! My poor little timid Eulalie will be frightened. I
remember Augusta telling me once how terrified she was
at thunder-storms."

He opened his door, crossed the hall, and tapped at his
sister's. It was opened immediately by Augusta, who
looked like a picture of the tragic muse, with her hair all
dishevelled, and her white morning-dress hanging Joose
about her.

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

83

" Have you not retired yet, Augusta ? " her brother
asked.

" No, I staid up reading a novel until the lightning com-
menced ; and now it is of no use thinking of bed until this
storm is over. Good Heaven ! what awful lightning ! "

A sheet of blue lambent flame that almost blinded them
lit up, for nearly three nftnutes, the hall, followed by a
thunder-clap that shook the house to its very foundation.
Augusta clasped her hands over her dazzled eyes, and her
brother seized her wrist and drew her with him into the
hall.

" Augusta," he said, hurriedly, "you told me Eulalie was
afraid of lightning. I wish you would go in and stay with
the poor child until this storm is past."

Miss Sutherland, just at that particular time, had no
very especial love for the black-eyed beauty, who had won
her cousin Philip from her ; but she tapped, nevertheless,
at Miss Rohan's door. There was no reply ; Augusta rapped
again, more loudly, but still no answer. She turned to her
brother with a paling face.

" Try the door," he said ; " open it yourself."

Augusta turned the handle. The door was not locked,
and she went in. Went in, over the threshold and recoiled
an instant after, with a shrill and prolonged scream, that
echoed from end to end of the house.

Arthur Sutherland, lingering in the hall, was standing in
the doorway in a moment. In all the long years of his
after-life he never forgot the picture on which he looked
then. The tall candles flared around the mirror, but the
perpetual flashing of the lightning lit the room with a blue
ghastliness that quenched their pale light. There was a
certain sulphurous smell in the chamber, too, that Arthur
had perceived in the hall, but not half so strongly as here.
Eulalie sat at the table, still in her dinner-dress, the shin-
ing skirt trailing the carpet, the jewellery she wore flashing
wierdly in the unnatural light. She sat in an armchair,
erect and rigid ; her hands clasping the last sheet of a

84

A WIFE^S TRAGEDY.

letter, her large black eyes staring wide open, with an
awful, glazed, and sightless glare. Not one vestige of colour
remained in the dead, white face ; and with the staring,
wide-open eyes, the marble stiffness of form and face, she
looked like nothing on earth but a galvanized corpse, A
terrible sight, sitting upright^there, tricked out in satin
and lace, and perhaps stone-dead. She had evidently but
just finished reading her letter — the loose sheets lay at her
feet, where they had fluttered down. The horrible truth
flashed upon Arthur in a moment — she had been struck by
lightning ! With the awful thought yet thrilling to the core
of his heart, he was bending over her, holding both her
hands clasped in his. These hands were ice -cold, and she sat,
neither hearing nor seeing him, staring blankly at vacancy.

"Eulalie!" he cried. "My darling! speak to me!
Eulalie ! Eulalie do you not know me ?"

She might have been stone-deaf, for all the sign she
made of hearing him — stone-blind, for all the sign she
made of seeing him — stone-dead, for any proof of life or
consciousness.

There were others in the chamber now — looking on
with pallid, awe-struck faces. Augusta's scream had
aroused the house. Arthur Sutherland saw a mist of
faces around him, without recognising one of them ; he
could see nothing but that one white, rigid face, with the
staring, wide-open black eyes.

" Arthur," a quiet voice said, and a hand was laid
lightly on his shoulder. He looked up, and saw his
mother, in her dressing-gown, pale and composed.
" Arthur, you had better go for Dr. Denover at once.
The storm is subsiding and there is no time to lose. I
fear she has been stunned by the lightning."

The words restored Arthur to himself. He started to
his feet, and was out of the room in a second. In an-
other, he had donned hat and waterproof coat, and in five
minutes was galloping, through darkness and rain, and
thunder and lightning, as he never had galloped before.

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

85

Mrs. Sutherland had sal-volatile, cologne, and other
female restoratives for fainting brought, but, in this case,
all proved useless. She chafed the cold hands and tem-
ples, but warmth was not to be restored. She strove by
caresses and endearing words to restore some sign of life
into that death-like face ; but all in vain ; all in vain.
Augusta and Luc^ stood silently near ; the servants
were grouped in the hall, hushed and frightened ; and the
ghastly blue glare of the lightning still lit up, at fitful
intervals, the room.

Mrs. Sutherland desisted at length from her hopeless
task, and rose up, very pale.

" I can do no more," she said. " It is the first case of
the kind that has eyer come within my observation. I
wish Dr. Denover was here ! Lucy, what is that ?"

Lucy had stooped to pick up the fallen sheets of the let-
ter ; and she looked up from sorting them at this abrupt
question. One sentence had caught her eye on the last
sheet, and set her curiosity aflame. The sentence was
this : " Beware of that man, my child ! I know not
whether he is living or dead, but the fear has been the
blight of my life, as it must be the bane of yours."

Lucy Sutherland had time to see no more. Her aunt's
hand was outstretched to receive the letter, her aunt's
haughty voice was speaking.

" That is Miss Rohan's letter, Miss Sutherland. Give
it to me !"

Lucy silently obeyed. Mrs. Sutherland crossed to Eu-
lalie's bureau, placed the letter in one of the drawers, with-
out looking at it, locked the drawer, and put the key in
her pocket. There was a significance in the act that
made Lucy's light blue eyes flash, and she turned and
walked out of the apartment, up-stairs, to her room.

In her own room, she sat down by the open window,
and looked out at the black, blind night. Ghastly gleams
of lightning quivered zig-zag in the air yet, the rain still
fell with an angry rush, and the thunder boomed sullenly ;
F

86

A wife's tragedy.

but the midnight storm was subsiding. Lucy Sutherland,
sitting there, felt a fiendish joy at her heart — a demoniacal
sense of triumph and delight. In all the pride of her
beauty and her youth, the fiery arrow from the clouds had
struck her rival down. " She may die ! She may die ! "
was her inward thought ; " and he may be mine yet ! "

She sat there the livelong night, looking out at the
black trees, listening to the hurrying of feet down stairs,
the opening and shutting of doors ; careless what they
thought of her absence, and thinking her own dark
thoughts. Had Eulalie E-ohan really been struck by light-
ning, or was it something in that letter that had struck
her down, like a death-blow ? " Beware of that man ! I
know not whether he is living or dead ; but the fear has
been the blight of my life, as it must be the bane of yours."
The strange words danced before her eyes, as if the letter
were yet in her hands. She knew it was from Eulalie's
grandfather. She had seen the signature on the same
last sheet, " Your heart-broken grand-father, Gustavus
Rohan."

It sounded very melodramatic, but there might be a
terrible meaning in the words after all.

" If I could only get that letter," she mused ; " If I
could only get it for ten minutes. There is some secret
in that old man's life, and that secret is to overshadow
the life of his granddaughter. What can it be ? Who is
this man of whom he warns her — who has her in his
power — the fear of whom is to be the bane of her life, as
it has been the blight of his ? If I could only fathom this
mystery, I might stop the marriage yet. Where there is
secrecy there is apt to be guilt, and Arthur Sutherland
would never ally himself with guilt Oh ! if I could only
get that letter ! "

She heard the return of Arthur and the physician, and
stole on tiptoe to the head of the stairs to listen. Eula-
lie's room-door stood open this sultry night, and she could
hear as plainly as- if she were in the apartment. It was

STKUCK BY LIGHTNING.

87

quite plain the doctor was as much puzzled as the rest,
and failed as entirely to restore the stunned girl to con-
sciousness. If she had really been struck by lightning,
the fiery shaft had left no trace ; it had benumbed her, as
the whistling of a cannon-ball close to her head might
have benumbed her. She sat there before them an awful
sight, in the dismal gray of the coming morning, decked
in satin and lace and jewels, the white face stony and
corpse-like, the black, staring eyes awfully like the eyes
of the dead.

" It is a most remarkable case," Doctor Denover said ;
" a case such as has never come under my observation be-
fore. I have known cases where intense fear or sudden
shocks have produced some such result. I cannot be cer-
tain that it was the lightning. Do you know if the young
lady had received a shock of any kind ? There are finely-
strung, sensitive organizations that sudden shocks of any
kind stun into a state like this."

" No," said Mrs. Sutherland, " I am not aware of any.
Miss Rohan spent the evening with us, and retired to her
room about two hours before we discovered her, in excel-
lent spirits. I am positive she received no shock."

" Was she very much afraid of thunder-storms ? " in-
quired Dr. Denover; "intense fear might have this ef-
fect."

" Yes," answered Augusta, " Eulalie was always terribly
frightened by lightning, more frightened than any one I
ever knew."

" It may have been fear, then," said the doctor ; " as I
said, I have known such things to occur, and the sufierers
have been stunned into a state resembling death. Some-
times they have recovered, sometimes they have not. Some-
times physical animation returns, but the mind remains
dead forever. In this case I cannot at present pronounce
an opinion. The poor young lady had better be undressed
and placed in bed, my dear Mrs. Sutherland, and we will
try what a little blood-letting will do for her."

88

A wife's tkagedy.

" I wonder how he is bearing all this ? " thought Lucy,
at the head of the stairs, with a savage feeling of revenge-
ful delight at her heart ; " I wonder whose is the triumph

She passed the remainder of the long night, or rather
dawn, between her own chamber and the head of the
stairs, listening to what was going on below. She knew,
with a horrible inward joy, that he had failed in every
attempt to rouse her, and that he was going away in de-
spair.

" I can do nothing more at present," she heard him sa}^,
as he was leaving; " it is an extraordinary case, and has
had no parallel in my practice. I will return this after-
noon, as you directed, Mrs. Sutherland, with Doctors
Reachton and May, and we will have a consultation.
Meantime, keep her quiet, and force her to take the
nourishment I mentioned. I think, Mr. Sutherland, you
would do well to telegraph for her grandfather at once."

" You think, then, doctor," Lucy heard Arthur say, in
a voice that did not sound like the voice of Arthur, " that
there is no hope ?"

" By no means, my dear sir, by no means ; while there
is life there is hope."

" Which is equivalent to saying that her doom is
sealed," thought the listener at the head of the stairs.

The doctor took his departure, in the dismal grayness
of the rainy morning. A dull and hopeless day rose
slowly out of the black and stormy night ; a gloomy day
at the best, depressing and wretched, even to the happy ;
doubly depressing and wretched in the silent house.
Drifts of sullen clouds darkened the leaden sky ; the rain
fell with miserable persistence ; the wind howled in long,
lamentable blasts through the wet trees; and the dull,
ceaseless roar of the surf on the shore boomed over all.
Inside the house, the silence of death reigned now ; the
noises of the night were replaced by ominous calm. If
that pretty room below had contained a corpse, the old

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

89

mansion could not have been hushed in more profound
stillness.

A deep-voiced clock, somewhere in the silent house,
struck nine, and the strokes sounded like the tolling of a
death-bell. Lucy, in a carefully arranged toilet, with
neatly-braided hair, and spotless cuffs and collar, de-
scended calmly to breakfast. The door of Miss Rohan's
room stood ajar, and she caught a glimpse of her aunt sit-
ting by the bedside. She saw Arthur in his own room,
too, as she passed the half -open door, pacing up and down,
looking worn and haggard in the dismal daylight.

Augusta followed her into the breakfast-parlour, and
they took their solitary meal together. When it was
over — and a most silent and comfortless repast it was —
Augusta went up to Eulalie's room; and Lucy, with her
everlasting work-basket and embroidery, took her seat
near the window and calmly waited for events to take
their course.

It rained all day, ceaselessly, wretchedly. The melan-
choly wind tore through the trees, and beat the rain
against the glass, and deepened the white rage of the surf
on the shore. But through it all, the telegram recalling
Mr. Rohan to Maplewood went shivering along the wires
to New York ; and through it all the three doctors of St.
Mary's drove up to the house in the afternoon. There
was an examination of the patient. They found the
death-like trance as death -like as ever ; and had a pro-
longed consultation afterward in the library. Lucy did
not hear the result, but it was evident enough the case
baffled the three. They staid for dinner, and talked
learnedly of the eccentricities of the electric fluid; of
people struck blind, or dumb, or dead, by lightning. But
all the precedents they cited seemed to throw no light on
the present case, and they went away in the gloomy twi-
light, leaving matters much as they were.

Three days passed and still no change. She lay in her
little white bed, as a corpse might lie on its bier, cold and

90

A wife's tragedy.

white as snow. The soul looking out of that white face
might have fled forever, for all signs of life in the vacant
black eyes. She lay without speaking or moving, or
seeming to recognise any of them. At intervals they
parted the locked teeth with a knife, and forced her to
swallow teaspoonsful of port wine and essence of beef.
They gave her powerful opiates, and drew the curtains,
and darkened the room ; and perhaps in these intervals
she slept ; but whenever they drew near the bed^ they
found the great dark eyes wide open and looking blankly
at the white wall. They never left her, night or day ;
and Lucy, quietly observant of all, wondered if Arthur
ever meant to eat or sleep again. Those three days had
made him pale, haggard, and hollow-eyed, and revealed
his secret to every one in the house.

On the fourth day there was a change. Some sign of
recognising Arthur had been given when he stooped over
her, and she had articulated a word — "grandfather." But
she had fallen off again, and they had failed to arouse
her, as she lay vacantly looking at the blank wall.

" It is very strange, Arthur," Mrs. Sutherland said, as
she stood with her son for a moment on the piazza, before
descending to dinner — " it is very strange Mr. Rohan does
not return."

" He may have left New York," said Arthur, " before
the telegram reached there. He will be with us, no doubt,
in a day or two."

Even as he spoke, carriage wheels rolled rapidly up
along the drive ; and, an instant after, a conveyance from
the railway emerged from the* shadow of the trees, and
they saw the Cuban millionaire sitting behind the driver.

Mrs. Sutherland and Arthur hastened down at once,
and met the old man on the portico steps. His face was
ashen white, and there was a strange fire in his eyes, a
strange and startling energy in his voice.

" Will she live ? " he cried, grasping Mrs. Sutherland's
hand, and looking at her with that startling fire in his
eyes. " Will she live ? "

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

01

" My dear Mr. Rohan," Mrs. Sutherland was beginning,
sadly ; but he cut her short, with a flashing glance and a
stamp of passionate impatience.

" Will she live ? " he cried out vehemently ; " quick !
Yes or no ? "

" The doctors say no ! "

" Thank God ! "

Mother and son recoiled at that fearful thanksgiving, as
if they had been struck. But he never looked at them as
he strode straight on to his granddaughter's room.

CHAPTER VIII.

TAKEN AWAY.

EXJLALIE did not die. The doctors had said she
could not recover, but, in spite of the doctors, she
did. From that fourth day, on which she had spoken, vi-
tality returned; and in the brief struggle between life
and death, life had gained the victory. But the recovery
was wearily slow, and very trying to those who loved her.
She knew her grandfather when he bent over her, his
tears streaming on her white face, but she knew him as if
he not been absent at all. She seemed to have forgotten
that. Very slowly the fair, frail body began to recover,
but the mind remained hopelessly benumbed. She knew
them all when they spoke to her, but their presence
seemed to convey no idea to her clouded brain. She had
nothing to say to them ; she had nothing to say to any
one, except to her grandfather, and her poor, plaintive,
childish cry to him ever was, " Take me home, grandpapa
— take me home 1 "

In her sleep she wandered deliriously, and talked of her
Cuban home, her convent school, her lessons, her tasks,
her girl friends, but she never by any chance came back
to the present, Maple wood seemed to have entirely faded
out, and she was only the child Eulalie once more, crying-
out to be taken home.

During the three long weeks in which the poor little
feet strayed wearily in the "valley of the shadow of death,"
Mr. Rohan scarcely left her side, night or day. There

TAKEN AWAY.

was no mistaking the passionate love, the devoted tender-
ness, the sleepless anxiety, with which he watched over
her. There was no mistaking that all absorbing love for
his grandchild — sinful, beyond doubt, in its excess, despite
that strange and unnatural " Thank God ! " he had uttered
so fervently when he heard she must die. It was won-
derful inconsistency, surely, but so it was. He scarcely
left her long enough to take sufficient food or sleep to
support nature ; his tears furrowed his aged cheeks as he
watched that snowy face, so cold and deathlike, con-
trasting with the great, hollow black eyes and disheveled
raven hair.

Mrs. Sutherland had followed him to his granddaugh-
ter's chamber, on the evening of his arrival, and had been
startled considerably by the vehemence with which he
asked his first question. She had been narrating to him,
by the way, the circumstances attending Eulalie's mis-
fortune.

" Madam ! " he said, cutting her abruptly short, " I sent
my granddaughter a letter which she should have received
on that day. Where is that letter ? "

Mrs. Sutherland produced the key of the bureau drawer.

" We found the letter lying on the floor at her feet as
if she had just finished reading it, and I locked it in that
drawer."

Mr. Rohan crossed the room, opened the drawer, took
out the letter, and placed it carefully in his pocket-book,
before he sat down by his grandchild's bedside.

He listened to what Mrs. Sutherland had to say, with
his eyes fixed on the colourless face, and both wasted little
hands clasped in his. He listened without answering —
without taking his eyes once oft' that dear face, his own
drawn and quivering with suppressed anguish.

He is the strangest old man," Mrs,. Sutherland said to
her son, afterward ; " I sometimes think his mind is going.
How extraordinary that he should utter that horrible
thanksgiving when I told him Eulalie must die ! and yet
he loves her to idolatry."

94

A wife's tragedy.

" Poor old man," said Arthur, sadly ; " how I pity him."

" That letter, too," his mother went on musingly ; " why
should he be so anxious about it the first moment he
arrives ? It is absurd to suppose that he can have any
secret to conceal ; and yet, dear me ! it seems very much
like it."

Arthur did not reply ; he scarcely heard her. He only
feared that the life and the reason of the woman he loved
were in danger, and that dreadful knowledge biotted out
everything else. The silent agony of those long days and
nights that had intervened since the fiery bolt had struck
her down in the zenith of her beauty and youth, had left
traces in his pale worn face that no one could mis-
take. Perhaps even that devoted grandfather, watching
over his one ewe-lamb, suffered less than the young lover,
who had yielded his whole heart to the spell of the dark-
eyed enchantress, hovering now between life and death.
He had spoken to that grandfather, or rather his heart
had broken out in spite of him, in his despair, and he had
told the story of his love and acceptance, and his anguish,
w^ith a passionate abandonment of sorrow that could not
fail to touch any heart that loved her.

It was a silent, sultry summer evening, a week after
the old man's return. The two went walking up and
down the chestnut-grove, with the black shadows of the
trees making flickering arabesques on the sward at his
feet, and the yellow summer-moon flaming up in the low
sky. He could not tell how the silent and self-contained
old millionaire might take his revelations — -just at that
moment he did not care ; but he was certainly unprepared
for having his hand grasped, as a father might have grasped
it.

" My poor boy ! " — the old man said, in a broken voice ;
— " my poor boy, I have foreseen this ! I would have
saved you — I would have saved her ; but I could not ! I
could not ! There is a fate, I suppose, in these things !
May Heaven help you to bear your trial !"

TAKEN AWAY.

95

Then you would not have withheld your consent ?"
Arthur said. " I feared you would think me presumptu-
ous in asking for her hand. I feared you might have
higher views !"

" No, no, no 1 " cried the old man, vehemently. " God
knows how gladly I would give my darling to you, Ar-
thur Sutherland, for I believe you to be a good and hon-
ourable man ; but there is an obstacle — an obstacle that
can never be surmounted — between you."

" An obstacle ! " Arthur repeated, in astonishment.
" What is it ? "

" I cannot tell you," said Mr. Rohan, turning his face
awa}^ " It is my secret and hers, poor child ! and I fear
it is the knowledge of that secret, and no lightning-flash,
that has struck her down. I cannot tell you what it is,
Mr. Sutherland. I can only say I fear it will keep you
apart forever. If my poor darling lives, it Avill keep her
Eulalie Rohan all her life."

" This is very strange," said Arthur, slowly ; " I have
no claim to a knowledge of your secret, Mr. Rohan ; but
so far as it involves her who has promised to be my wife,
I surely have some right to know why it is to keep us
apart, and to judge for myself whether it is sufficient. It
must be a very powerful reason, indeed " — with a tremor
of the voice — " that will hold me for life from the woman
I love."

" This is a powerful reason," said Mr. Rohan ; " but not
even so far as you ask have I a right to reveal this seci'et
of my life. I have not the right ; for it menaces Eulalie,
not me."

" Menaces Eulalie ! It is some danger, then ? "
" It is some danger."

" Perhaps it is the loss of wealth you fear," cried Ar-
thur, brightening ; if so—"

" No, no, no ! " interposed the old man, hastily ; " would
to Heaven the loss of every farthing I possess could free
my poor child from her danger ! Most gladly, most thank-
fully would I become a beggar to-morrow ! "

96

A wife's tragedy.

Arthur Sutherland's brow contracted. Was there really
some dark and hideous secret involving his plighted wife,
or was all this strange talk but the lunacy of a monoma-
niac. There was a long and painful pause, broken at last
by the younger man.

" You do not treat me well, Mr. Kohan," he said, the
light of the yellow moon showing how pale his face was.
" You do not treat me generously. Have you no trust in
me ? Can you not rely upon my love for your grand-
daughter, to keep your secret and hers, and judge for my-
self whether it is sufficient to sever us forever. Is the
whole happiness of my life to be lost for a darkly mys-
terious hint that I cannot comprehend ? Oh, Mr. Rohan !
remember that T love her, that she loves me ; and pity us
both ! "

They were standing on the terrace as he spoke, on the
very spot where he had stood with Eulalie that fatal even-
ing. The old man laid his hand kindly on his arm.

My dear boy," he said, " I have no wish to distress
you. I am the last in the world who would make a mys-
tery or raise an obstacle were it in my power to avoid it.
It would be the proudest and happiest day of my life, the
day on which I could see my child your wife, if this rea-
son did not exist to render that happiness impossible."

" Why impossible ? " cried Arthur, vehemently ; "why if
we love and trust each other ? She has committed no crime,
Mr. Rohan, that needs concealment."

" She ! My innocent darling ! who knows no more of the
wickedness and misery of this big world than an infant !
Oh, no!"

" Then," cried Arthur, still more vehemently, " she shall
not suffer for the crimes of others ! Whatever your se-
cret is, Mr. Rohan, keep it ! I don't ask to know it. She
is innocent of all evil ; and, in spite of ten thousand se-
crets I claim her as my promised wife ! "

Mr. Rohan caught none of his enthusiasm. His face
only clouded the more.

TAKEN AWAY.

97

" Poor boy ! " he said, " it is hard to dash such high
hopes. I shall not dash them — you shall take your an-
swer from Eulalie, if she ever recovers sufficiently to give
you an answer. When she promised to be your wife,
subject to my consent, Mr. Sutherland, she was as igno-
rant as you are now of this hidden spring in her life.
She learned it that night ; and it was that knowledge,
and not the lightning, that struck her down. If she ever
recovers, she shall decide your fate herself, unbiassed by
me, and you shall hear it from her own lips. If she thinks,
in spite of everything, she can still be your wife, your
wife she shall be, with my heartfelt blessing and prayers
for you both."

Arthur grasped the old man's hand, and poured out
such a flood of grateful acknowledgments as he never had
listened to before. He looked at the flushed, handsome
face, with a sad smile.

" Ah ! it is very little, after all, that I am promising
you ; but Eulalie shall decide for herself The poor child
wants to go home. Let us take her home, Mr. Suther-
land. Among the old scenes and the old faithful faces,
she may recover. Do not come to us. Do not write to
her. Give us time — say half a year ; and then, when only
the memory of this sorrowful time remains, come to our
Cuban home, and say to Eulalie what you have said to
me. She shall do as she pleases — go with you as your
bride, or remain with me, without my speaking one word
to influence her. Will you do this, Mr. Sutherland ? "

Poor Arthur ! Six months seemed a drearily long time.
But what could he say, save yes ?

" Will you write to me ? " he said. " Will you not let
me kno w how she is ? "

Most certainly ! And she shall write to you herself,
if she wishes it. As soon as she is strong enough to bear
the journey, we shall start. The home air wiU restore
her faster than anyttiing else."

98

A wife's tragedy.

So it was arranged. The matter ended with these
words, and no more was said on the subject.

The invalid still reiterated her mournlnl cry :

" Take me home, grandpapa ! Take me home ! "

And the old man's answer ever was :

" Yes, dear, we'll go home very soon now."

But in spite of the anxiety of both, it was nearly a
month before the frail invalid could start on that home-
ward journey. Before the expiration of a fortnight, she
was able to rise and lie all day on the sofa, dosing the
^ still, sultry hours away, or looking vacantly, with large.,
haggard eyes, at the purple, sunlit sky. In another week
she could go down stairs, clinging to her grandfather's
arm — a poor, pale shadow — and, wrapped in a large shawl,
walk out feebly in the lovely green arcades of Maple wood.
Very slowly strength of body was returning to that deli-
cate little frame ; but strength of mind came slower still.
Nothing could arouse her from that slow torpor — t-hat
dull apathy to everything and everybody. Whether it
was Mrs. Sutherland, or Augusta, or Lucy, or Arthur, it
seemed much the same to her. She was restless, and
silent, and uneasy with them all. Only with her grand-
father was she at rest and content.

At last came the day of departure. A very sad day in
the Sutherland mansion, with none of the gay bustle, and
pleasant confusion and hurry that usually attends de-
partures. The trunks were packed a-nd strapped in si-
lence and gloom ; the last meal was eaten together in a
dismal and comfortless way ; and Arthur lifted Eulalie
into the carriage with a face nearly as pale as her own,
and a heart that lay like lead in his bosom. His mother
and sister drove with them in the roomy carriage to the
depot, and he rode beside them at a funeral pace.

Little more than a month ago, he had ridden beside
them, as he was doing now, to see Mr. Rohan off on his
journey ; and how his whole life seemed to have changed
since then ! How bright the world had looked that day.

TAKEN AWAY.

99

taking its colour from his own goodness of heart ! What
a desolate, blank waste it seemed now — all things
darkened by his own gloom ! He could see the frail
little creature, who lay back among the silken cushions,
languid, and wasted, and wan ; and he remembered how
bright, and beautiful, and radiant she had been that day!
Only one month ago ! It seemed to him that he had
lived centuries since then.

The last good-bye was said, the train went shrieking
on its western way, and the Sutherlands returned home.
How still, how ghostly silent that home seemed ! If a
corpse had been carried out of the house and buried, the
oppressive quietude and loneliness could not have been
greater. They all felt it. There was so much to remind
them of her — her empty and desolate-looking room, the
music she loved scattered loose upon the piano, the books
she used to read, her vacant seat at the table, her empty
sofa under the amber curtains of the bay-window— all
telling of some one lost, and lost, perhaps, for ever.

Mrs. Sutherland, standing by the drawing-room win-
dow, in the grey tAvilight of that same evening, was re-
volving a plan in her mind for changing all this. It was
a dull, sunless, airless, oppressive evening, with a low-
lying grey sky, from which all rosy and golden clouds had
gone ; and the tall trees looked black against the leaden
back-ground. There was a rustic bench, under a clump
of bushes visible from the window, and she could see her
son lying, with his face on his arm, upon it, in a forlorn
and hopeless sort of w^ay. Augusta was gaping dismally
in the ghostly twilight over a book ; and Lucy, at the
piano, was playing some mournful air in a wailing minor
key, that was desolation itself.

" This won't do ! " thought Mrs. Sutherland, decisively.
" We must have a change. That poor girl's memory is
like a nightmare in this house, making us all melancholy
and wretched. There is that boy gone to a shadow, and
as pale, and haggard, and miserable as if he had lost every

100

A wife's tragedy.

frieDd he had in the world. Augusta, too, whose spirits
used to be boisterous enough for anything, is moping her-
self to death ; and I believe I am catching the infection,
for I am nervous and low-spirited, and out of sorts. I
shall leave Maplewood before the week ends, and take
them both with me."

Mrs. Sutherland was as good as her word, and went to
work with energy. The bustle and hurry of preparation
turned the quiet house topsy-turvy, and forced the most
torpid of them into action.

" I am going to Saratoga, Arthur," Mrs. Sutherland
said, with calm determination. " Augusta wants change ;
and you are to accompany and remain with us. The gay
life there, the fresh scenes and fresh faces will do us all
good. I shall probably remain until late in September,
and pass a month or two in New York before returning
here.^'

Arthur listened listlessly. He was not to see Eulalie
Rohan for six months ; and it mattered very little to him
where these six weary months were passed. So he re-
signed himself, " passive to all changes," and saw to the
huge pile of trunks and bandboxes, and attended them
faithfully to their destination.

And Lucy Sutherland, the housekeeper, and the ser-
vants, had the old house at Maplewood all to themselves.
Lucy might have gone to Portland, and spent those
months with her mother ; but she liked the grand house,
and sunlit lawn, and green arcades, and spreading gar-
dens, and sea-side terraces of Maplewood, far better than
the dingy hired house looking out on Casco Bay. She
had her books (and Lucy was fond of reading), her cou-
sin's piano, and her eternal embroidery ; and she liked
being alone, and bore the departure of her aunt and cou-
sins with constitutional calm. Mrs. Sutherland had in-
formed them they were all three to be absent until the
close of November. Great, therefore, was Lucy's surprise
when, before the first fortnight had worn away, one of the

TAKEN AWAY.

101

two returned. She was sitting at the piano, playing softly
in the hot twilight, when a tall form strode into the room,
and stood between her and the red sunset. She rose up,
with a face that told no tales of the rapid heart-beating
beneath, and looked at her cousin Arthur.

" I could not stay there, Lucy," he said ; " I was sick
of it all in ten days 1 What did I care for those crowds
of strange men and women, and the dressing, and danc-
ing, and drinking, and the rest of the foolery ! I shall
do far better here, in this quiet place, and with you, my
quiet, fireside fairy ! "

" And your mother ? " Lucy asked.

" My mother adheres to the original programme. She
and Augusta like the gay Saratoga life, and dress and
drink water with the best. I am afraid they did not
like my desertion ; but they knew no end of people there,
and were not likely to need me ; and so I got desperate,
and — here I am."

The two cousins sat in the twilight a long time talk-
ing, that still summer evening. Both of them thought
of Eulalie, but neither spoke of her ; and Lucy's hopes
were high once more. She sat at her window until the
midnight moon sailed up to the zenith, with a flush in
her cheek, and a fire in her blue eyes, and a hopefulness
at her heart all unusual there. The black-eyed siren,
whose dusky beauty had bewitched him, was far away.
All the long summer she would have him to herself,
thrown entirely upon her society in this quiet country-
house ! Surely, surely, her time had come !

Lucy Sutherland came out in quite a new character
after that night. She who had always been as silent and
as taciturn as an Indian became all at once conversable
and entertaining. She played for him — not very bril-
liantly, perhaps. She walked out with him ; and asked
him to read aloud to her while she worked. The old
housekeeper looked on approvingly ; they were cousins,
and it was all right ; and Arthur talked to her, and read
G

102

A wife's tkagedy.

to her, and thought of her precisely as he would have
talked, and read, and thought of Augusta. And he would
have been almost as much amazed if any one had told
him his sister Augusta was in love with him as his cousin
Lucy.

There was but one woman in all the world to him,
whose memory was a thousand times dearer than all the
cousins in existence. How he passed all those long, long,
purposeless days, and weeks, and months, thinking of her,
dreaming of her, and praying for her, he alone knew.
How his mind ever went back to that one absorbing sub-
ject, let him talk of what he pleased to Lucy ; how her
face came between him and the page from which he read
aloud ; how he would shut his eyes and lean back in his
chair when Lucy played, and see the fairy figure once
more, in Lucy's place, and hear the sweet old Mozart
melodies she loved to play. Poor Lucy ! If you had
only known how all those pretty, tasteful toilets were
thrown away, how vain were all your efforts to please, you
might have saved yourself a great deal of useless trouble
during the weeks of that, for jou, far too pleasant summer.

The close of the first month brought a letter bearing
the Havana postmark. What an event that was, and
how eagerly it was torn open and devoured ! It was
very short, and very cold, the feverish lover thought.
Eulalie was greatly improved since their return ; and he,
(Mr. Rohan) had strong hopes of her speedy and perfect
restoration to health. That was all ; but Arthur thanked
God for the news it brought, and felt he could wait more
hopefully now. He wrote often, and very long letters ;
but Mr. Rohan's replies were few and far between, and
said very little.

July, August, and September passed. Mrs. Sutherland
quitted the springs, and established herself for a couple
of months in New York. It was bleak December, and
the giound was white with snow ; and the green arcades
and long sunny gardens were drear and forsaken. Then

TAKEN AWAY.

103

maples, and hemlocks, and beeches, and chestnuts were
gaunt and stripped, and the wintry blasts howled dis-
mally around the old house, before the lady and her
daughter returned to spend Christmas at home.

But while the world lay wrapped in its winding-sheet
of snow, and the old year was dying, with melancholy
north winds shrieking its requiem, and the roses had
faded from Lucy Sutherland's cheeks that the summer
had brought there, Arthur was in an elysium of happi-
ness. Christmas -eve had brought him joy, in the shape
of a letter from Cuba. It was of the briefest, as usual ;
but it contained these words, and they had transformed
the scheme of the universe :

My dear Boy : — The time of probation is past, and
you have nobly kept your word. Eulalie is perfectly
restored once more — a little quieter and more womanly
than of old, but her restoration to health complete. You
may come to us if you will. Eden Lawn is delightful this
December weather ; and we will both rejoice to see you."

CHAPTER IX.

" COME WHAT WILL. I HAVE BEEN BLESSED."

THE long windows of the flat-roofed, foreign-looking
mansion shone like sheets of red gold in the evening
sunlight. The low, scented, tropical wind stirred the lime-
trees and orange-trees, and swung the creamy magnolias
and clustering acacias. It was a January evening. The
snow was piled high and the freezing blasts howled some-
v/here ; but not here, in this isle of the tropics. The red
lances of the sunset kissed the sleeping flowers good-night
as it drooped behind the rosy horizon, so resplendently
brilliant that it seemed as if some of the glory of heaven
shone through.

The girl who lay languid^ on a lounge, with a book^in
her hand, looked out with dark, dreamy eyes on the fading
radiance, her thoughts far away. The white-muslin wrap-
per she carelessly wore hung loose around her wasted
figure, and was hardly less colourless than the face above
it. The dark, pallid, Creole face was unspeakably lovely
still, though its brightness had fled ; the profuse raven
curls as beautiful and silky as ever, and falling dank and
divided over her shoulders, like an ebon veil. The book
she held in her hand was half closed. She was not reading,
but thinking very sadly — thinking of a pleasant Northern
household around which the snowdrifts were flying this
J anuary evening, and the desolate wind howling up from
the angry sea. She could see the long drawing-room where
the coal fire blazed in the polished grates, the lighted

"COME WHAT WILL, I HAVE BEEN BLESSED." 105

lamps, and the drawn curtains. She saw a stately elderly
lady, with a face pale and proud, lying back in an arm-
chair luxuriously, "in after-dinner mood/' with half-closed
eyes. She saw a plump, fair-haired, rose-cheeked damsel
sitting at the piano, dressed in violent pink, playing noisy
polkas or stormy mazurkas. She saw another young lady,
robed in nun-like black, with a suppressed look in her pale
face, and a clear, cold, fathomless light in her blue eyes.
She saw these three women as she had often seen them ;
and she saw, with an aching sense of loss and desolation
at her heart, a fourth form — a man's form — sitting reading
by the light of a shaded lamp, as she had been wont to see
him sit and read in the happy days gone by. Did they
miss her at all ? Did he miss her ? In that New England
mansion, on the stormy sea-coast, was even the memory
of the Creole girl, who had once been one of them, for-
gotten ?

While she was thinking all this, the fading sunlight
was darkened, and a stranger stood before the window.
He had to pass it to reach the door ; but the low cry the
girl gave at sight of him reached his ear and stopped him.
She had started up in a violent tremor and faintness,
and he had caught sight of her. A moment more, and he
was through the low, open casement, holding her in his
arms.

My darling ! " he cried, " have I found you again ? "

She was so agitated and so excited by the unexpected
sight of him that she could not speak. She trembled so
as he held her that he grew alarmed.

" My love !" he said, tenderly, " how you tremble ! I
have frightened you, I fear, coming so suddenly. Sit
down here, my dearest, and try to be calm."

He seated her gently on the lounge. Her face, pale be-
fore, blanched now with the excitement of the moment,
even to the lips. He was pale himself with suppressed
agitation, but he was calm outwardly, for her sake.

" Will you speak to me, Eulalie ? " he said, holding both

106 A wife's tragedy.

her hands in his. " You have not said one word of wel-
come yet."

She laid her face — her poor, pale face, down on the
dear hands that clasped hers, and he conld feel them grow
wet with her tears.

" Oh, Eulalie ! " he said, in a distressed voice, " are you
sorry I have come ? "

" No ! no ! " said Eulalie, in broken tones, " no ! For-
give me, Arthur. I am not strong — I am not what I used
to be. I am very glad to see you, and I am very foolish
to cry, but I cannot help it. Excuse my weakness. I
will be better in a moment."

Presently she looked up with a faint smile breaking
through her tears.

" I am sorry to distress you by crying so," she said ;
" but I have been weak and nervous ever since I was ill,
and those tears flow too easily. Thank you for not try-
ing to stop me ! "

"You are not well yet," Arthur said, with an anxious
glance at the thin, pale face. " Your grandfather told me
you were."

" And I am. I am quite well again, only not so strong
as I used to be. When did you come ? "

" I reached Havanna last evening, and have lost as
little time as possible in arriving here."

" How are all in Maplewood — your mother, and sister,
and Lucy ? "

" They are all well, and all miss you very much,"

There was a blank pause. How difficult it is, in that
first meeting, after an absence of months from those who
are dear to us, to say what we want to say most. The
wretched feeling of restraint we cannot overcome — so
much to say, that we grow confused and say nothing at
all, or only ask trivial questions. It was so with Arthur
and Eulalie now. With the questions that were to decide
the whole future lives of both pending, they sat and
talked, the commonest common-place, and with long em-
barrassing gaps between.

"COME WHAT WILL, I HAVE BEEN BLESSED." 107

" Where is your grandfather ? " Arthur asked.

" Here ! " said a familiar voice, before she could reply.
" Welcome, my dear boy, to Eden Lawn I"

He had entered quietly, unobserved, and came round
from behind Eulalie's lounge, with outstretched hand and
friendly smile. There was a heartiness in his voice, a hos-
pitable warmth in his manner, that was a new revelation.
The cold, watchful, silent, gloomy old man, who had been
the nightmare of their lives at Maplewood, was an en-
tirely different person from this courteous and gentlemanly
host, welcoming his guest.

"I heard your voice as I descended the stairs," he said.
" And how are all at home ? "

Athur answered ; and the three sat long in the rosy
twilight, talking. Mr. Rohan was genial, and the most
fluent talker of the three. The change in him for the bet-
ter was really marvellous. It was as if some unendurable
weight had been lifted off" from his mind, and that, re-
lieved of that oppression, his nature resumed its natural
bent again. But the spirits he had gained, his grand-
daughter seemed to have lost.

Arthur Sutherland looked at her with a sense of inde-
scrible pain at his heart. Let her change as she might,
he could not love her less. He had given her his whole
heart, and that faithful heart grieved now, to see how al-
tered she had grown. He could remember her, a bright
little tropical flower — as radiant a little beauty as ever
danced in the sunlight ; and he saw her a woman, with
haggard cheeks and great melancholy, dark eyes. No
common illness could have wrought a change like this.
Was it, then, that dark, that impenetrable secret, that
was to stand between them all their lives ? Had the old
man cast off" his burden when he told it ? and was its
shadow, that had darkened his life so long, darkening
hers now ?

Arthur Sutherland asked himself those questions in the
solitude of his own room that night. He loved her so

108

A wife's tragedy.

well and so truly— he trusted in her truth and innocence
so implicitly, that, despite this dark barrier of a secret he
was never to know, he could take her to his heart to-
morrow, and thank God for the gift. His pride and his
sense of honour were as of old ; but he loved his dark-
eyed enchantress, and he felt that his life without her
would be a dead and dismal blank — useless to himself or
his fellow-beings. He had tried, in the days gone by, to
look his worst fate in the face — a life apart from hers — but
he never could, he never could ! She seemed to have be-
come part of his very nature ; and he felt — it was very
wrong, no doubt — that a life separated from Eulalie was
a life not worth having.

With all this, Arthur found it was not so very easy to
regain his old place — to bridge over the chasm of six
months, and stand on his former footing. He found it
hard to speak of the subject that had brought him to
Cuba ; but he was so happy, only to be with Eulalie once
more, that waiting was not so very trying. A week
passed away before he ventured to speak ; a blissful
week, that brought back the old delicious time when he
had read and walked with his dark- eyed divinity in the
summer twilights and sunsets, and listened to her play-
ing all the long, sultry afternoons. She . was changed
since then. She was grown so very quiet ; and the beau-
tiful eyes were so mournful in their subdued light; but
no change could make her. less lovely to him. Mr. Rohan
was invariably kind ; he seemed trying to atone for his
past coldness and reserve by his genial warmth and cor-
diality now : and it was to him the young man first found
courage to speak.

They were walking up and down the lime-walk, in the
coolness of the early morning, when Arthur broached the
subject.

" You know, Mr. Rohan," he said, with an agitation in
his voice no effort could quite overcome ; " you know the
object that has brought me here. I have not said one

''COME WHAT WILL, I HAVE BEEN BLESSED." 109

word to Eulalie yet. Have I your permission to speak
to her ? "

Mr. Rohan looked kindly at the agitated face of the
speaker.

" Most certainly," he said. " Most certainly, my dear
boy. I told you, when you spoke to me last, that my
granddaughter should never be influenced one way or
other by me in this matter. I told you this, and I have
kept my word."

Arthur grasped the old man's hand in his fervent grati-
tude.

" Then I have your permission to speak to her at once,
to end this suspense ? "

" Yes," said Mr. Rohan ; " whatever Eulalie says, I agree
to beforehand. You have acted nobly and self-denyingly,
my dear boy, and you are worthy of her. Tell her what
I have said ; that she is free to act as she pleases. Heaven
knows, the only desire for which I live is to promote her
happiness ! "

Arthur waited for no more. He knew where Eulalie
was to be found, and he sought her out with a radiant
face. She was reclining, as usual, on a lounge in the
breakfast-room, in a loose, white wrapper, reading from a
volume of poems he himself had given her. She dropped
it suddenly, for Arthur was beside her, pouring out, with
new-found eloquence, the words he had come to say.

" I have waited so long," Eulalie, he cried ; " I have
remained away from your dear presence for six long
months, at your grandfather's desire, and surely now I
have some claim to speak. When will you keep your
promise, Eulalie — when will you be my wife ? "

She dropped her book, and sat up, and looked at him
with a frightened face.

" Oh, Arthur ! " she exclaimed, " you must never ask
me that question again ! I can never be your wife ! "

Arthur Sutherland stood staring at her, utterly con-
founded.

110

A wife's tragedy.

" Oh, forgive me ! " she said ; " forgive me, Arthur ! It
is breaking my heart, but I cannot help it ! When I
made that promise, I did not know what I know now. I
can never be your wife, Arthur — never, never ! "

" Never 1 " repeated Arthur, white to the ver}^ lips.
" Have I thus been the dupe of a coquette from first to
last ? Was I only mocked when you told me at Maple-
wood that you loved me ? "

" No, no, no ! " Eulalie cried out, vehemently. " I spoke
the truth. It is because I love you that I cannot be
your wife ! "

That darkly- mysterious secret again ! He knew she
referred to that. Was it to be a stumbling-block in the
way to the very end.

" I cannot understand this, Eulalie. What is to prevent
your keeping your promise — what is to prevent your being
my wife ? "

She turned away from him and hid her face in her
hands.

" Because — because there is a secret I can never tell you
— a secret of shame, and horror, and humiliation. I can-
not tell you what it is ; and you yourself must see that it
is impossible for me ever to become your wife."

" What if I do not see it ? "

" Arthur ! "

She dropped her hands, and sat looking at him in
wonder.

" I do not know what your secret is. I do not ask to
know it," he said, resolutely. " I only know that I love
you, and that you have never committed any crime to be
afraid or ashamed of. The crime and shame of others,
however near to you they may be, shall not wreck the
happiness of our whole future lives. I hold you to your
promise, Eulalie. I ask you again, when will you be my
wife?"

Her breath came quick and short ; too amazed, too
happy to speak.

''COME WHAT WILL, I HAVE BEEN BLESSED." Ill

Arthur ! Arthur ! you are speaking hastily and im-
pulsively now. You may repent your rashness hereafter."

" I shall never repent. I am not speaking hastily or
impulsively. I am saying what I said six months ago.
I am saying what I should say six years from now, if you
kept me waiting so long, Eulalie, I ask you once more
when will you be my wife ? "

" And you can trust me still, in spite of this secret I
can never tell ? "

" I could trust you, my dearest, in spite of ten thou-
sand secrets. I should never ask any woman to marry
me whose truth and honour I could insult by a doubt."

" And in the future," Eulalie said, pale and breathless,
" if any evil should come, you will not forget that I have
warned you, and that you take me in spite of everything."

" I shall never forget. No evil the future can have in
store for me can be half so terrible as losing you.. I shall
be able to meet the worst evil undauntedly, so that I have
you by my side."

Her dark eyes filled with tears as she laid both her
hands in his.

" You are very, very good," she said. " It shall be the
study of my life to be worthy of such confidence as this.
Does grandpapa know of this ? "

" I spoke to him before I came to you. Whatever you
say, he has promised to endorse. Dear little hand," he
said, lifting it to his lips with a radiant face : " mine
for life now ! "

CHAPTEE X.

THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM.

" j^AR away from the orange and citron groves of sunny
_ J Cuba, with its mellow sunshine and fragrant breezes,
the snowdrifts were flying and the wind howling dismally
this January month. At Maplewood, the tall trees rattled
their skeleton arms, and the snow was piled high in the
long meadows and spreading gardens. Fence and lawn
were deserted, the double windows made fast, heavy cur-
tains shut out the bleak daylight, and sparkling fires
blazed in the polished grates. But life was very pleasant
in-doors at Maplewood, this stormy New- Year season ;
for Mrs. Sutherland had friends from the city spending
the holidays under her hospitable roof ; and laughter and
merry voices rang from early morning until late at night
through the lately silent rooms. Half a dozen gay girls,
with portly mammas and tall, moustached brothers, tilled
the empty chambers ; and it was nothing but party-going
and party-giving, and general jollification these merry
New- Year times.

There was one young lady at Maplewood who took very
little share in these gay doings. If an extra partner was
wanting to fill a quadrille or cotillon, or a second needed
in a duet, or a supernumerary in a charade or tableau, her
services were called into requisition ; and she always did
w^hat she was asked to do with the readiness of an auto-
maton or living machine. But she never joined them for
all that. She mixed among them, and yet was as far
aloof as though she dwelt in a desert. She was not of

THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM.

113

their kind, and they disliked her instinctively for it, as
cordially as she detested them in the depths of her heart.
But her face — the rigidly pale face of Lucy Sutherland —
was too well trained to show any of this detestation. The
paid companion knew her place a great deal too well for
any such atrocity. She flitted in and out among them —
a pale, silent, inscrutable shadow, puzzling to some, con-
venient to others, and liked by none.

With the low, leaden winter twilight of a bleak January
day darkening around her, Lucy Sutherland stood at the
library window looking at the snow beginning to fall. A
high gale surged through the maples and hemlocks with
a roar that nearly drowned the roar of the surf on the
sands. There was a sobbing cadence in the wind this
wild winter evening, and the snow fluttered through the
leaden air, faster and faster, as the darkness came on. A
black sky frowned over all, and the scene was the very
dreariness of desolation ; but it suited the mood of the
girl who watched it, far better than the hilarious gaiety
within. She could hear them in the drawing-room — some
one at the piano, singing " Thou hast Learned to Love
Another " — sweet girlish voices blending musically with
men's deep tones, and their laughter coming softly in with
the music. But what had she, the paid dependent, to do
with music and laughter, and rich and happy people ?
She was not missed or wanted, and so she stood brooding
darkly over her own morbid thoughts, while the snow
beat against the window glass, and the stormy night shut
down in blackness.

A servant came in and lit the gas. As she went out
there was a rustle of silk, a waft of perfume, and Mrs.
Sutherland swept in, an open letter in her hand, and her
face radiant.

" Augusta ! are you here ? " she cried. " Oh, it is only
you, Lucy. Have you seen Augusta ? "

" I think I saw her going into the conservatory with Mr.
Halcombe, half an hour ago. Shall I go in search of her ?"

114

A wife's tragedy.

" Yes, go. I must tell her the good news. I have just
had a letter from Cuba, Lucy, and Arthur is married ! "

Some one says of Talleyrand, that if he were kicked
from behind, his face would not show it. Diplomacy,
perhaps, gave the great statesman that wonderful com-
mand of countenance, but it comes by nature to women.
Lucy Sutherland heard the news as Mary Stuart heard
her death-bell toll, without flinching. She might have
caught a gasping breath, with the agony of the first sharp,
sudden pang ; but even that, her face did not betray. Its
pallor was habitual now, and the gaslight befriended her.
Even her voice was quite steady when she spoke.

" Permit me to offer my congratulations. He is mar-
ried to Miss Rohan ? " ^

" Yes, to Miss Rohan ; and his letter is one outburst of
ecstasy. As it was written the day after the wedding,
that was to be expected ; and Eulalie is an angel ; and he
is in paradise. He writes to say good-bye, for the happy
pair start for the continent without coming near us. Go
find Augusta, Lucy ; I must tell her at once."

It was something quite foreign to the usual order of
things for Mrs. Sutherland to converse in this friendly
manner with her niece-in-law, but she was so uplifted on
the present occasion as to forget for the time being, how
much she disliked her.

" Tell Augusta to come at once," Mrs. Sutherland called
after Lucy ; " I must put a stop to her flirting with that
popinjay Hal combe. Don't tell her what I want her for,
either."

Lucy found Miss Augusta and Mr. Halcombe deep in a
desperate flirtation among the rose-bushes and gera-
niums, and delivered her mamma's message. The dinner-
bell rang at the same moment, and Lucy went in after
the rest with no shadow on her stony face of what her
heart was feeling. She listened, still with that shadow-
less calm, when Mrs. Sutherland came back with Augusta,
and made public the tidings of her son's marriage to the

THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM.

115

Creole heiress, whose fabulous wealth and beauty was an
old story to all. She ate and drank, while a little
tumult of congratulation went on around her, and all the
time her heart seemed to lie dead in her breast. How
desperately, how passionately, how insanely she had
learned to love Arthur Sutherland she had never dreamed,
until this night, when the last flickering hope died out,
and she knew she had lost him for ever. With that face
of stone, she sat eating and drinking mechanically, the
voices around her blended in one confused discord, and
a dull sense of horrible despair filling her breast.

" Their tour is to be a prolonged one " — the voice of
Mrs. Sutherland made itself distinct, saying — " Eulalie
has never been abroad, and they purpose remaining two
years. I doubt it though — that devoted grandfather and
granddaughter cannot remain apart half the time."

Of course there was nothing else talked of all through
dinner but the wedding, and the great riches and greater
beauty of the Creole bride. Arthur Sutherland was the
most fortunate of men, all agreed ; and the ladies won-
dered what the bride wore, and how many bridesmaids
she had ; and whether she was married in a bonnet, or
bridal- veil and wreath ; and if it was at church or at
home.

" In church, I dare say," Augusta said ; " these Catho-
lics like to be married in church, I believe ; and Eulalie
was always very devout."

Lucy Sutherland, wearing that ineffably calm face of
hers, made herself very useful that evening, as usual.
She walked through two or three sets of quadrilles — she
played waltzes and polkas for the rest — and went up to
her room past midnight, and was alone with her despair
for the first time. She had loved him, she did love him
— and she had lost him for ever ! Thousands of poor
hearts have wailed out daily, and do wail out, that same
pi^ul cry ; but that, I am afraid, makes it none the
easier to bear. She had been a block of stone down-

116

A wife's tragedy.

stairs, but here, locked in her own room, with no wit-
ness save Heaven, she could be a woman, and do battle
with her womanly agony, and go down among them
when to-morrow came, a statue once more.

The holidays passed very pleasantly at Maplewood.
The merry ringing of sleigh-bells, or the joyous laughter
of skaters, made music in the January sunshine all day
long, and dancing, and dressing, and feasting, and flirting,
stole away the " rosy hours " of the wintry night. It
was all very delightful indeed, and everybody said
Maplewood was the dearest old place in the world, and
hated to tear themselves away when the month of Feb-
ruary came round. With her guests departed Mrs. Suth-
erland and Miss Augusta, for the gay life of the city.

" It will be so horribly lonely, you know," Mrs. Suther-
land said ; " after the pleasant time we have had, for me
and Augusta to mope ourselves here until next summer.
Besides, it would be unfair to her, to bury her in her very
first season in an old country house. I shall leave Lucy
Sutherland in charge and go to New York."

So, early in February, to New York they went, and
Lucy was once more alone. Perhaps not one of the gay,
fashionable, frivolous people who bade her adieu, thought
whether or not she, a young girl like themselves, might
not find it lonely, immured in this big, empty house all
alone, like Marianna in the moated grange. She was
scarcely a human being to them ; only a pale, silent,
noiseless shadow, coming and going, and forgotten as soon
as out of sight.

How that long winter did drag itself out, she alone
ever knew. About once a month came a letter from Au-
gusta, bringing spasmodic scraps of news from the great
outer world. She and mamma were having, oh, such a
splendid time ; and there was another letter from Arthur
and Eulalie, and they were in France, or Germany, or
Switzerland, or somewhere else, and too happy for words
to tell.

THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM.

117

Mrs. Sutherland found the city so pleasant that the
genial spring months found her lingering still. May came,
and June, and July; and the mistress of Maplewood and
her daughter were at New York, and Augusta was having
a more splendid time than ever. Once again the maples,
and hemlocks, and pines, and tamaracks, were in their
green summer dress, and the shadows flickered and fell
on the velvety terrace overlooking the sea, where Arthur
Sutherland had wooed his bride. Once again the songs of
the countless birds made the amber summer air vibrate
with wordless melody ; and the August and September
roses lifted their flushed heads in the golden heat.

The long summer wore itself out as the winter had
done ; and still Lucy was the pale recluse of Maplewood,
seldom, save on Sunday morning, passing beyond the great
entrance-gates. But when, in the glorious autumn the
maples and hemlocks burst out in an oriflamme of crim-
son and yellow, and the apple and pear and plum trees in
the orchard were laden to the ground with their luscious
load, Mrs Sutherland came home, with her daughter and
another flock of city friends, to spend autumn and Christ-
mas and New Year's in her New England homestead.

"Goodness gracious me, Lucy Sutherland!" Augusta
cried ; " what have you been and done to yourself all
these ages ? You look like somebody that had been dead
and buried and come to life again by mistake. Can't
you do something for her, Phil., in the pill or powder line,
to keep her from looking so awfully corpse-like as that?"

For Philip Sutherland was back again at Maplewood.
" Time, that blunts the edge of things, dries our tears and
spoils our bliss " — time had brought such balm to him,
that he could bear once more to look on the scene of his
love and his despair. Fifteen months is a tolerable time
to heal a broken heart, particularly when that heart be-
longs to a man ; and Philip Sutherland could eat, drink —
ay, and be merry, too, though the woman he loved was
the wife of another man. But the great trouble of his
H

118

A wife's TRAGEDY-

life had left its indelible traces, as all great troubles must
do ; and lie had grown ten years older in gravity and
staidness during these fifteen months. He looked at
Lucy now with that grave face that was so new to him.

" My solemn Lucy, you do look old enough to be your
own grandmother," he said ; " no wonder, though, shut
up here all alone, like an oyster in its shell. The only
wonder is you have not gone melancholy-mad long ago."

Lucy looked at him with a contemptuous smile. " He
talks of what he knows nothing about," she thought ; " I
shall be lonely now that all these men and women are
here. I was not before they came."

So the weeks went on, with Lucy counting them in
their flight. Christmas and New Year came in robed in
snow, and departed, and Mrs. Sutherland and her friends
departed, too. They had flown back to the city, not to
return until June, when Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland were
expected home.

But Lucy's solitude was over, for April brought a troop
of workmen — carpenters and masons and landscape-gar-
deners and upholsterers — to refit and refurnish the old
mansion for the reception of its master and mistress ; and
workmen and labourers were in and out, and up and down
stairs, and the hammer and plane resounded from morn-
ing till night. But out of the chaos of noise and dirt and
confusion, order and harmony came at last. Most elegant
harmony, too. The house was like a palpable fairy tale
in its new beauty and splendour, and J une roses waved in
a sort of modern Garden of Eden. The house had been
fitted up superbly, and landscape gardeners had been
working miracles. Mrs. Sutherland and Augusta went
into feminine raptures over their old home in its transfor-
mation. They had come alone this time. It was hardly
likely Arthur and Eulalie, weary of travelling, and long-
ing for the peace and rest of home, would care to find a
houseful of fashionable strangers in possession before
th^m. And, besides, there was poor dear Eulalie's mourn-

THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM. 119

ing for her grandfather ; for, nearly six months previously,
the old oiillionare had gone to the world of shadows from
which all his golden thousands could not save him one
poor second. He had gone — ^nd how the granddaughter,
who had loved him so devotedly, had mourned him, they
could only conjecture, for her brief letters did not tell.
Those countless thousands were all her own now ; and
the baby that opened its eyes first in this mortal life in
Florence the Beautiful was surely born with a golden
spoon in its mouth.

" I do want to see the baby, you know," was Augusta's
cry ; " because the idea of Arthur's bab}" is something too
absurd. If I had only been born to fifty or sixty hundred
thousand, I dare say my snub nose would not be thrown
in my face every day of my life, as it is now."

It was in the golden haze of a June twilight that the
travellers came. Mrs. Sutherland, Augusta, and Lucy
stood in the doorway to welcome them, and Lucy's face
was whiter than snow. Arthur, sunburnt and bearded
and bronzed, and handsomer than ever, kissed them all
round ; and Eulalie, beautiful as a dream, in her deep
mourning, wept on the motherly breast of Mrs. Suther-
land. A little paler than of old, a little less brilliantly
bright, but indescribably more lovely. Wifehood and
maternity, too holy and intense in its happiness for words
to tell, had wrought their inevitable change in her. But
the entrancing beauty was all the more entrancing for
the change ; and it needed only one look to tell you that
this man and wife were truly united, and as perfectly
and entirely happy as it is possible for creatures in this
lower world to be.

A Swiss nurse, with a round, high-coloured face and a
funny cap, got out with a bundle in her arms. The
bundle turned out to be the baby ; and Augusta, with a
little screech of delight, made a grab at it, and tore off its
wrappings, to the unspeakable dismay of baby's little
mamma,

120

A wife's tragedy.

" Oh, what a beauty ! Oh, what a perfect love of a
baby 1 " was Aunt Augusta's cry. " Oh, what lovely black
eyes and black curly hair. It's the very image of Eulalie,
and not a bit like you, Arthur."

" I like it all the better for that," smiled Arthur.
" Louisa, don't let her tear your nursling to pieces, if you
can help it. It is in imminent danger of being kissed to
death."

The Swiss bonne came forward, and took the little
black-eyed atom from Augusta, and followed the rest
into the house. It had its mamma's wonderful Creole
eyes, this tiny, pale-faced, solemn-looking baby, and had
not one look of the Sutherlands in its infantine physiog-
nomy. It was Eulalie Rohan over again, as Eulalie
Rohan must have looked at five months old — not beauti-
ful now, but with the serene promise of future beauty in
its baby face.

Lucy Sutherland, pale, silent and shadowy, hovered in
the background, like any other shadow, all that evening,
and watched the wife of Arthur Sutherland furtively but
incessantly from under her pale eyelashes. The change
in the Creole puzzled her. Two years ago, she had been
the most childish of spoiled children ; now she was a
woman, A woman, with deep-dented lines of care and
thought in her smooth forehead, with gravely earnest, al-
most mournful, dark eyes. The gaslight fell dull on her
black dress; but neither the outward nor the inward
mourning for that beloved parent could have wrought
this change ; for she was unspeakably happy, you could
see, loving that handsome husband of hers with a pas-
sionate devotion that it falls to the lot of but few men to
be loved. She loved and trusted him with her whole
heart and soul, as these impassioned daughters of the
South have an unfortunate way of doing, and she was
happy and blessed beyond the power of words to tell.
What, then, was the trouble that had wrought a revolu-
tion in her whole nature, that had furrowed so early that
young brow ?

THE LULL BEFORE THE STORM.

121

In the solemn and lovely starlight, Lucy sat up in her
own room, watching the big round midnight moon sailing
through a cloudless, serene sky, and asked herself the
question. The life that lay before these two promised
very brightly to-night; but far off, invisible to every eye
save her own, the pale watcher saw a dark cloud, slowly
gathering.

"I hate her !" Lucy Sutherland said to her own heart;
" I hate her, and I hope and pray and trust I may live to
see her ruined and disgraced. There is a secret in her
life — a dark, disgraceful secret, that I will find out, if I
spend my life in the search ; and when I see you down
in the very filth under my feet, I will cry quits with you,
Mrs. Arthur Sutherland!"

CHAPTER XI.

AT THE CONCERT.

THE prettiest of little ormolu clocks, standing on the
low marble mantel, struck up a lively Swiss waltz,
preparatory to striking eight, as Lucy Sutherland, in full
dress, opened the heavy oaken dOor, and entered the
boudoir of Mrs. Arthur Sutherland. In full dress, with
Miss Lucy Sutherland, meant a robe of pale lavender
crape, as dim and shadowy as herself, and a few knots of
ribbon, a shade or two deeper in tint. The charming
boudoir of the charming wife of Arthur Sutherland was a
miracle of taste and luxury and beauty — a fitting nest for
the tropical bird who owned it. The bright June moon-
light, streaming in between the curtains of ros}^ silk, fell
in squares of silvery lustre on the thick, soft Persian carpet
and the gems of pictures on the tinted walls. Opposite the
door was an archway hung with rose silk. Lucy lifted
the curtain, and stood in the dressing-room of her cousin's
wife.

A beautiful room — more like a sea-nymph's grot than
an apartment for anything mortal. A carpet that looked
like tangled moss ; pale green walls, with painted panels,
where mermaids and mermen disported themselves in
foamy billows ; with couches and ottomans, cushioned in
green velvet, and great mirrors flashing back on either
hand this sea-green grot. A lovely room, for the lovely
little lady standing before the exquisite dressing-table full
in the light of a dozen wax tapers, taking a last look at her

AT THE CONCEKT.

123

own enchanting beauty. She wore black lace that swept
the carpet with its filmy flounces ; and pale oriental pearls
glimmered like wan stars in midnight in her hair, and
around the perfect throat and arms. Beautiful she looked,
this starry-eyed, jetty-haired little Creole wife — a beauty
born — and looking lovelier to-night than ever before,
Lucy thought, bitterly, in the depths of her envious
heart.

A vivid foil to the glowing little southern beauty, in
her dark drapery, stood Augusta, in a violet pink dress,
and flashing diamond necklace and cross. Trifine, Eulalie's
maid, was just fastening the barbaric diamond eardrops in
her ears when her cousin entered.

" Dressed, Lucy," Mrs. Arthur said, with that radiant
smile of hers, " and not fifteen minutes since you went up-
stairs. There is an example for you and me, Augusta."

" I don't care about following Lucy's example," said
Augusta, with a French shrug, learned from Trifine. " The
role of the Princess Perfect never suited me, but Lucy takes
to it as naturally as life. You have moped and moped,
and grown dismal and corpselike, shut up in this big barn
of a house from year's end to year's end, and Prince Per-
fect is very long in coming. Isn't he, Lucy, dear."

" Yes," said quiet Lucy, " perhaps so : but no longer
coming. Miss Sutherland, than the Prince for whom you
have been angling so desperately these last two years."

Eulalie laughed ; and Augusta, conscious of being well
dressed, and of looking her best, made a little wry face.

" Don't be cantankerous, Lucy, its an old maid's privi-
lege, I know, but don't use it, dear. There 1 that will do,
Trifine ! How do I look ? "

"Charming ! " cried Mile. Trifine ; and Mrs. Arthur
Sutherland echoed the flattering; but Lucy only eyed
her with a little sour glance of disdain.

"Don't you think 1 look charming, too, Lucy, dearest
and best ? " inquired Augusta, provokingly, " Of course
you do ; but the ejctent of your admiration renders yoii

124

A wife's teagedy.

speechless. Don't trouble yourself to put it in words, my
love — I'll take it for granted. By-bye, Eulalie. I must
go and display myself to mamma, to be revised and cor-
rected before going down."

Off swam Miss Augusta, making a mock obedience to
Lucy in passing. The old armed neutrality existed still
between these two ; and Lucy and Augusta hated each
other with a cordial intensity truly womanly. Lucy's
position in the family, hitherto painfully undefined, had
latterly been more decidedly fixed. When Mr. and Mrs.
Arthur Sutherland had returned, she spoke one day to
the new mistress of Maplewood of leaving, and had been
met with an earnest protest.

" I shall feel lost if you go, Lucy," Eulalie had said im-
ploringly. "You don't know how ignorant I am, and how
stupid I am about housekeeping. I couldn't order a din-
ner, you know, or see after the servants, or know whether
anything was done right or wrong, and you will do me
the greatest favour, my dear cousin, by stopping here and
taking all the trouble off my hands. Besides, Lucy,
Maplewood would not be Maplewood without your quiet
face within its walls."

" You mean, Mrs. Sutherland," Lucy said, coldly, not
deigning to notice the caressing words — " you mean you
want a housekeeper, and you offer me the situation."

" O you dreadful matter-of-fact Lucy," laughed Eulalie.
" You are as matter-of-fact as some grim old man of busi-
ness. Yes, if you will put it so, I do want you to be my
housekeeper. My poor, dear Arthur, must go dinnerless,
I am afraid, if you do not."

Lucy Sutherland, homeless and friendless, was only too
glad to accept an offer which meant nothing to do and a
high salary for doing it. But she closed with it as coldly
and thanklessly as she had hitherto accepted, ungraciously,
a home in the family. So she was housekeeper at Maple-
wood now, and jingled the keys at her girdle, and issued
her mandates to the servants, and came to Mrs. Arthur in

AT THE CONCERT,

125

a coldly formal way for her own directions ; and hated
her all the while, and watched her like a spy by night and
by day. Eulalie, with the princely spirit nature and
education had given her, heaped costly presents on this
pale, silent, impenetrable cousin-in-law, whom she could
not take to kindly, somehow ; and Lucy accepted every-
thing, still thankless and still unthawed. The costly
jewellery, the rich dresses, Eulalie forced upon her with a
lavish hand, were so much " portable property," she might
one day turn into current coin and use to bring about
Eulalie's own downfall. She took the gifts and hated
the giver, and Eulalie knew it by some inscrutable second-
sight.

" She doesn't like me, poor soul ! " she said to her hus-
band. " I suppose she thinks me foolish and ignorant ;
and I know I am, too."

" Because you don't understand the art of cooking
breakfast and making coffee, my dear little good-for-
nothing wife," laughed Mr. Sutherland. " I don't think
it would accord with the universal fitness of things to see
my elegant little Eulalie bending over a cook-stove, or
simmering over jellies in a hot kitchen. Still, I think
you mistake about Lucy : she is one of your silent, im-
penetrable sort — human icicles, that would thaw in the
tropics. Her lines have not fallen in very pleasant places,
poor girl ! and her loveless life has intensified her reserved
and undemonstrative nature."

Mrs. Sutherland, senior, going back to the city very
soon, was only too thankful to have the responsibility of
Lucy shifted off her shoulders.

" She is, without exception, the most disagreeable crea-
ture I ever met," said the elder lady to her daughter-in-
law ; " but, I dare say, she will serve you well enough as
a housekeeper. I never liked her ; the mere sight of her
irritates me, and I am glad to be so well rid of her."

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Sutherland's dear five hundred
friends had called upon them immediately after their re-

126

A wife's tkagedy.

turn ; and now a ball was to be given at Maplewood, to
which the dear five hundred were invited. Mrs. Suther-
land and Augusta departed for Saratoga directly after ;
but Mr. and Mrs. Arthur remained for the summer at
home, by the young wife's desire.

" We have had enough of sight-seeing and gaiety and
society while we were abroad, dear," she said, clinging
lovingly to her husband ; " and I am so tired of it all, and
I want to be at home, and at peace, with only you and
baby. I want to stay at home, Arthur, in this beautiful
old home of ours, where so many happy days have been
spent, and shut out the great big tumultuous world out-
side, if I can."

Lucy Sutherland watched her this night of the ball as
she always watched her, furtively, as a cat watches a
mouse. She looked after her with a sinister look in her
pale eyes, as she went into the nursery before descending
to the ballroom. It was a dainty little apartment, all
gauzy white drapery, with a carefully shaded lamp, and
the most elegant and exquisite of tiny cribs for the heir-
ess of all the Sutherlands. It was the first time in nine-
teen years there had been a baby in Maplewood ; and
from stately grandmamma down to Betty, the cook, baby
was in a fair way of being kissed to death. There never
was a baby in the world like it, of course ; everybody
said so but Lucy Sutherland, and Lucy never had any-
thing at all to say on the subject. She was the Mordecai
at the king's gate ; and she watched Eulalie bend over the
crib with a cold, hard, glitter in her eyes. It was a pretty
picture, too — the lovely young mother in her misty lace
dress and floating black curls, looking little more than a
child herself, bending over the cradle of her first-born.
But Lucy hated mother and child — hated them wdth a
vindictive intensity that these frozen natures are capable
of once in a lifetime*

The happy wife of the man she had loved and had lost
could not fail to be other than an object of abhorrence to

AT THE CONCERT.

127

her ; and the beauty, the grace, and the fabulous fortune
of the young Creole wife were each an item to render her
more and more abhorrent.

The ball that night at Maplewood was a brilliant suc-
cess. The dusky splendour of Mrs. Arthur Sutherlaij-d's
splendour had never before so dazzled the eyes of the
good people of St. Mary's. She was like some little tro-
pical bird, in her glowing and dusky loveliness, that had
fluttered by chance down here, in this staid New England
home.

" By George ! what a perfect little beauty she is ! "
more than one enthusiastic gentleman cried. "Suther-
land's the luckiest fellow alive, to win such a wife, and
* such a fortune."

Lucy Sutherland, never relaxing that pitiless watch of
hers, saw Mrs. Arthur some half dozen times during the
night glide out of the heated and gas-lit and crowded
" ball-room, up stairs, to that pretty room where her baby
slept. " Where the treasure is, there shall the heart be
also." And Eulalie, bending down to kiss the sweet baby
face, was far happier than when surrounded by her hosts
of admirers. Lucy's pale-blue eyes saw this with a gleam
of demoniac triumph in their steely depths.

" If I fail every other way," she thought, " I can strike
her at any time through that child. It would be a very
stupid way, though ; and I think the mystery that is hidden
in her life will come to light yet, and save me the trouble."

The ball passed off brilliantly ; and in the gray and
dismal dawn, the guests drove away from Maplewood.
Two days later, Mrs. Sutherland and Augusta took their
departure for gayer scenes, promising to return for the
Christmas holidays ; and the family at Maplewood were
left alone to begin their new life.

A very quiet life. No visiting, no calling that could
be avoided, no party-giving or going. Mrs. Arthur Suth-
erland had grown strangely quiet, grave Lucy could
hardly be more of a recluse than she. If she went out at

128

A wife's tragedy.

all, she went reluctantly, and under protest. She was so
happy at home ; she said she wanted nothing of the world
outside, and she had acquired a nervous dread of meeting
strangers. If she rode out, or walked out, it was always
closely veiled — she, who had never been in the habit of
wearing a veil. Even in her visits of charity to the sick
and the poor of the neighbourhood, even in her Sunday
drives to and from the church, she never went now with-
out a screening veil. Her husband laughed at and ridi-
culed her strange whims ; but he remembered all these
wretched details afterward, in the miserable days so near
at hand.

So near at hand, and yet just now how cloudless the
sky looked — how very, very happy those married lovers
were ? Too happy to last ; for this perfect bliss cannot
long endure in this lower world. Eulalie — taught in her
convent-school that perfect happiness is only to be found
in heaven — nestling sometimes in her husband's arms,
would look up in his smiling face with great solemn black
eyes.

" Oh, Arthur, we are too happy ! " would be her cry.
" It makes me afraid, this great and perfect bliss. What
have we ever done to deserve it, when so many better
than we are have nothing but suffering and misery all
their lives! Arthur, dearest, I am afraid it cannot last."

" My foolish little pet," her husband would laugh, " what
put such dismal notions in your curly head ? Deserve
it ? Why, are you not a sort of uncanonized saint ? And
as for me — well, I don't set up for an archangel ; but then
I never murdered any one. Of course, it will last. What
can possibly happen to mar our bliss ? "

" What ! " Eulalie repeated, her dark face paling, and
her dark eyes dilating with a sort of horror. " Oh, Arthur,
Arthur ! if I lost you, I should die."

Arthur Sutherland stooped down and kissed the lovely
face with all the passionate devotion of his wooing-days.

" My love, how can you talk of such dreary things ? I

AT THE CONCERT.

129

know how ifc is — you are growing morbid and melancholy
and dismal, shut up here from week's end to week's end.
You must go out more, my little wife. Not a word, now.
I am going to turn tyrant, and will have it ! You have
been shut up long enough like a nun in her cell."

The evening after this conversation, Mr. Sutherland,
riding home in the twilight, found his wife, as he had first
beheld her, lying in the recesses of the drawing-room
window, wrapped in a crimson shawl, and nestling luxu-
riantly among the silken pillows. Unlike that first even-
ing, this summer twilight was black and overcast. The
sky above was leaden, without one relieving streak of
light ; the rain lashed the windows ceaselessly, and the
wind wailing through the maples had a melancholy moan
in its voice that was like a human cry of pain. A wild,
wet, windy evening without, but the long drawing-room
looked cozy and home-like. Eulalie nestled among her
cushions like a little dark sultana ; Lucy bent over a
book at a distant window, only pausing now and then to
look out at the storm; and Louise, the Swiss bonne, with
little black-eyed baby Eulalie in her lap, sat on a low
rocker, swaying to and fro, and singing softly some lul-
laby of her native land. Mr. Sutherland bent over his
wife, and aroused her with a kiss.

" Oh, Arthur, I am so glad you have come ! " Eulalie
cried, clinging to him, with that dusky pallor in her Cre-
ole face, and that terrified look in her great eyes, that
sometimes startled him. " I have been asleep and dream-
ing— oh, such a terrible dream ! "

" Terrible dreams, I dare say ! It's raining like a
water-spout, and the wind is howling among the trees out
there in a way that would give any one the horrors.
What have you been dreaming about, petite ? "

" Oh, Arthur, about grandpapa."

" Well, and what about grandpapa ? "

Her arms tightened around his neck, and he could feel
the frightened throbbing of her heart.

180

A wife's tragedy.

"Arthur, 1 saw him. I saw him as plainly as ever I
saw him in my life. He came and stood here beside me,
looking down on me as he used to look — poor, dear grand-
papa ! — only far more sorrowfully, and far more warn-
ingly. He did not seem to speak, and yet I felt as though
he had come to warn me of some awful danger near at
hand. Oh, Arthur, I am afraid ! What do you think it
can mean ? "

She clung to him as a scared child would cling to its
father, looking up at him with her great, wild, wide eyes.

Arthur Sutherland, for the first time, became really
alarmed. The old fear that had come to him the very
first night that they had met — the fear she was going in-
sane— struck on his heart like ice. He folded her close
to his breast, while he tried to laugh.

" My foolish Eulalie ! Who would have thought you
so superstitious — so silly ? The rainy day has made you
low-spirited, and you have had a dismal dream ; and here
you are trembling with the dread of you know not what !
Come I I have a cure for the blues. You and Lucy are
to go out with me this evening."

Lucy Sutherland lifted her head from her book for the
first time. Not once had she stirred. Not once had the
colourless lashes lifted off* the pale blue eyes ; and not one
word of the conversation between husband and wife had
escaped her. But Lucy did not believe in dreams, and
her face was immovably calm as she looked at her cousin.

" Go out this rainy evening ? " she said, in a tone of
calm inquiry.

" In the carriage you can defy the rain. All St. Mary's
are on the qui vive. All St. Mary's are going ; and the
ladies from Maplewood must go, too."

He drew from his pocket, as he spoke, a huge play-bill,
with letters a foot long, and flourished it before their e3^es.

" Here you are !

" ' The Ethiopian Troubadours ! Positively two nights
only.'

AT THE CONCERT.

131

'* That means a week, at least.

" ' Unrivalled attraction ! The audience kept in roars
of laughter.'

" Do you hear that, my solemn Lucy ? ' Go early if
you wish good seats.' Mrs. Sutherland, will you have
the goodness to be dressed by half -past seven ? "

" Arthur, I don't care to go."

" That does not make the slightest difference, madam.
I have issued my sovereign commands, and on your peril
you and Lucy are to disobey. You are to dress in your
prettiest ; and no veils, remember. I w^on't have it. And
be ready precisely at half -past seven. I would not miss
hearing the Ethiopian Troubadours for a kingdom."

Of course, after such imperious orders, there was noth-
ing for it but obedience. Under his jocose tone, Arthur
Sutherland was very much in earnest. He saw that his
wife needed change — needed society — needed amusement
— and he determined to insist for the future on her going-
out more. But she was strangely and unusually reluctant
to leave home to-night. All might have been the effects
of her dream ; but her mind was full of ominous fore-
bodings all the while her maid was dressing her. Arthur,
waiting for her in the drawing-room, took both her hands
in his when she came down, and looked at her.

" My pale little girl, what have you done with your
rosy cheeks ? You are as white as a winter snow-wreath,
and your hands are like ice. Oh, this will never do ! I
shall take you away from Maplewood over the world
again, if you keep on like this."

"No, no!" Eulalie cried. "Not away from Maple-
wood, where I have been so very, very happy ! I am only
a foolish child, as you say ; but I will try and grow wise
and womanly for your sake, my darling."

Lucy came in with her noiseless tread as she spoke :
and Mr. Sutherland, offering an arm to each, led them to
the carriage. As it drove through the blind darkness of
the sultry night, the rain beat ceaselessly against the
glass, and tlie wind shrieked dismally up tron^ the sea.

in

A WIFE*S TRAGEDY.

The stormy night, however, seemed to have little effect
on the music-loving people of St. Mary's.

The long concert hall, ablaze with illumination, was
filled to repletion when the Sutherlands entered, and a
low murmur of admiration ran round the crowded hall
at sight of the beautiful wife of Arthur Sutherland. That
gentleman, with his wife on his arm, and Miss Lucy fol-
lowing close behind, made his way to three reserved seats
near the stage, nodding to his friends right and left as he
passed along. The drop-curtain was down, but the or-
chestra was in full blast as they settled themselves in
their seats.

" Here are programmes for you, ladies," Mr. Sutherland
said. " Up goes the curtain ! "

The drop-curtain rose as he spoke, disclosing the Ethio-
pian Troubadours, nearly a dozen in number, with shin-
ing black faces, standing in semicircle, and bowing to
the audience. The orchestra struck up a symphony, and
one of the Troubadours, in a very fine tenor voice, had
just commenced one of the popular songs of the day, when
the concert-hall was electrified by a wild, prolonged
shriek — a woman's wild scream — a sudden disorder and
commotion in front of the stage, and every one up on
their feet in consternation, demanding to know what was
the matter. In the midst of it all, a gentleman (Mr. Ar-
thur Sutherland) went past, white to ghastliness, carrying
a fainting lady in his arms. The lady was his wife, and
Miss Sutherland was hastily following.

It was some time before the startled audience could
find out what it was. Then a rumour ran round. Mrs.
Sutherland, apparently in the best of health and spirits,
had been reading the names of the Troubadours, on her
bill, when she had suddenly sprang up with that terrify-
ing shriek, and fallen forward in a dead swoon.

CHAPTER XII.

MR. GASTON BENOIR.

THE thriving village of St. Mary's contained, among
its other public buildings, two hotels — the Weldon
House and St. Mary's Hotel. The Weldon House was the
popular stopping-place of all strangers in the village ;
whether it was owing to the capital table and beds you
got there, or the charms of the buxom widow lady who
kept it, or her four fair daughters, it is impossible to say.
The Ethiopian Troubadours, coming to St. Mary's strang-
ers, and inquiring for the best hotel, were directed to the
Weldon House ; and accordingly in the Weldon House
these eminent gentlemen had pitched their tents.

On the morning after the concert, quite a lively crowd
were assembled in the spacious parlour of that establish-
ment. There were the four Misses Weldon, some two or
three lady boarders, a few of the village young ladies, and
half a dozen of the Troubadours. They were animatedly
discussing the concert, with the exception of one young
lady, who sat by a window, and whose foot kept beating
an impatient tattoo on the carpet, while her eyes never
left the door ; a remarkably pretty girl, with long golden-
brown curls, violet-blue eyes, rosebud cheeks, and lips as
sweet as ever were kissed. This young lady was Miss
Sophie Weldon, second daughter of Madame Weldon ; and
that she was impatiently waiting for the entrance of some
one was very evident. Her silence and distant manner at
length struck the lady who sat placidly crocheting beside her,
I

184

A wife's tragedy.

" What's the matter with our Sophie this morning ? "
demanded the lady. " She has generally enough to say for
herself, but to-day she sits as solemn as an owl, saying
nothing, and watching that door."

" Watching that door !" repeated Miss Sophie's eldest
sister, maliciously," which, being interpreted, means watch-
ing for Mr. Benoir."

The rosebud tinge on Sophie's fair cheeks, turned sud-
denly to big round roses, and there was a general laugh
among the company.

" Benoir's a lucky fellow," said one of the Troubadours ;
" but then he's used to that sort of thing. I don't know
what kind of taste the women have got, for I'll swear he's
next door to a nigger."

"Who is? " inquired a new Troubadour, sauntering lazily
in ; " jou don't mean me, do you ? "

There was a pause of consternation, and Miss Sophie's
violet eyes grew as bright as stars.

" Speak of the ! no, I'll not say it, ladies being pre-
sent," said another Troubadour. " Brown's just called you
a nigger, Benoir — meaning no offence. By-the-bye, have
you got over the shock yet of having your song inter-
rupted last night ? "

" Who the deuce was it 'i " inquired Mr. Benoir ; " I mean
the lady who screamed and fainted."

" Mrs. Arthur Sutherland, of Maple wood," replied the
elder Miss Weldon. " I suppose it was the heat, and she is
a delicate little thing, any way."

" I had a good look at her," said one of the Troubadours ;
" she sat right in front, and, by George ! she is the stun-
ningest little beauty I ever saw in my life."

" Oh ! she's lovely ! " cried Miss Sophie, rapturously, " I
could sit and look at her for a week. She is prettier than
any picture I ever saw, with those great black eyes of hers,
and that beautiful smile. And, do you know," exclaimed
Miss Sophie, struck by a sudden inspiration, " I think she
looks ever so much like Mr. Benoir ! "

MR. GASTON BENOIR.

135

Mr. Ben oil* bowed profoundly.

" Thanks, Mademoiselle, you do me proud ! I should
like to have a look at this beautiful lady whom I resemble
so much. Is there any hope of seeing her at the concert
to-night."

" Hardly, after the fainting-fit of last evening ; and she
scarcely ever goes out ; or if she does, it is always closely
veiled."

" Veils ought to be indicted as a public nuisance," said
Mr. Benoir ; " that is, on pretty women. Ugly ones, if
there be such a thing as ugly ones, do well to mask their
bad looks under — "

Mr. Benoir stopped short, for there was a little cry
from Miss Sophie, who had glanced out of the window.

" Oh, Emily ! I declare if here is not Miss Lucy Suther-
land ! What in the world brings her here ?"

" She cannot be coming here," said the eldest Miss
Weldon, going precipitately to the window ; " she never
was here but once in her life, and that was to collect
money for the new church. She is too proud. My stars,
though, if she is not ! "

There was a general flutter of expectation among the
company, in the midst of which Mrs. Weldon herself ap-
peared, ushering in Miss Lucy Sutherland. Miss Weldon
arose, and presented a seat.

" Don't let me disturb you," Miss Sutherland said, smil-
ing graciously. " I called to ask after Fanny — I heard in
the village she was ill."

" You are very kind, I'm sure. Miss Sutherland," said
Fanny — the youngest Miss Weldon — answering for her-
self. " I had a sore throat yesterday, but it is almost
well now, thank you."

"And how is Mrs. Sutherland ?" inquired Miss Weldon ;
" I was so sorry to see her faint at the concert last night.
Is she better again ? "

" No," said Miss Sutherland, whose eyes had been wan-
dering furtively from face to face of the silent Troubadours

136

A wife's tragedy.

ever since her entrance, "she is very poorly. She was
ill and hysterical all night, and the doctor never left her.
She fell asleep for the first time just before I came away."

There was a general murmur of sympathy among the
ladies, and Miss Sophie inquired if she supposed it was
the heat.

" I don't know," said Miss Sutherland ; " It might have
been, for poor Eulalie is not very strong."

Mr. Benoir, who had been leaning lightly over the back
of a chair, taking very little interest apparently in the
conversation, started as suddenly and violently at this
last speech as if he had received a spear-thrust. He
turned round and faced Miss Sutherland with a strange,
eager look in his eye.

" I beg your pardon," he said, " but did you call the lady
Eulalie ? "

Miss Lucy Sutherland lifted her eyes in calm surprise
to his face, and took a long look before she answered,
him. He was a very handsome man, this Mr. Benoir —
Mr. Gaston Benoir, as his name read on the playbills —
with a dark, Southern kind of beauty rarely perfect in its
way. No features could be more exquisite ; no eyes could
be larger, blacker, or more splendidly luminous ; no teeth
could be whiter or more even ; no hair could be darker, or
more silken and curly.

He was tall and perfect of form as of face, with a clear,
dark, olive complexion. He wore a thick, jetty moustache,
and spoke with a slightly foreign accent, but in excellent
English. To a casual observer, he was only an uncom-
monly handsome young man ; but Lucy Sutherland was
a physiognomist, and underlying all that dark beauty she
saw that this man was crafty, and cruel, and selfish, and
sensual, and a villain ! She saw it all in that one glance ;
and then the light blue eyes shifted and fell.

" Mrs. Sutherland's name is Eulalie," she said, calmly.
" May I inquire why you ask ? " '^^:^.„^^-Z.^ism'<''^

" Because I once knew a person of that name whom I

MR. GASTON BENOTR.

137

have not .seen for years, and it is a name one does not of-
ten hear. It was in Louisiana I knew the person ; but
Mrs. Sutherland, I presume, has never been there ? "

" I think not. Mrs. Sutherland is a native of Cuba."

" Cuba ! " Again Mr. Benoir started, and his dark face
flushed hotly. " Cuba ! " he repeated eagerly. " May I
ask if her maiden name was Rohan ? "

Miss Sutherland and every one else in the room looked
at Mr. Benoir in surprise.

Mr. Benoir turned away suddenly, and looked out of the
window in a manner that preA^ented them from seeing his
face. When he spoke his tone and words were carefully
guarded.

" I have been in Cuba," he said, " and I have heard of
Mr. Rohan and his granddaughter. No, Miss Sutherland,
I never saw Miss Eulalie Rohan."

He turned as he spoke, and walked out of the room,
bowing slightly to the company.

They all saw him as he went out, and the flush had left
his handsome face, and he was white even to the lips.

Miss Lucy Sutherland only lingered a few moments long-
er, and then took her departure. Mr. Benoir was leaning
over the balcony, smoking a cigar, as she passed ; and she
gave him a sidelong look from under her light lashes.

" It is as I suspected," she thought, as she walked slow-
ly homeward. " It was never the heat made Eulalie Su-
therland faint last night. What is she to this man ?
What is he to her ? He is handsomer than any one I ever
saw: and he has known her in Cuba. I am sure of it in
spite of his denial. Is this the dark mystery that over-
shadowed her grandfather's life and hers ; and is the day
of her disgrace and downfall nearer at hand than ever I
thought ? "

Mr. Gaston Benoir lingered so long on the balcony
smoking cigars, that pretty Sophie Weldon lost patience
waiting for him, and made her appearance there too.
Mr. Benoir started up, flung away his cigar, and offered
her his arm.

, «.

138

A wife's tragedy.

" I am tired of solitude and my own tliouglits, Miss
Sophie," he said; "and was just wishing for you. It
looks delightfully cool down there in the orchard, under
the trees. What do you say to a walk ? "

Miss Sophie had no objection. It would have been a
strange proposal, indeed, she would have objected to,
coming from Mr. Benoir. She had seen him the day be-
fore for the first time ; but pretty, blue-eyed Sophie Had
a susceptible heart ; and Mr. Benoir' s handsome face had
wrought fearful havoc there already.

There was no one in the long orchard, where the apple-
trees were in bloom ; and the handsome Troubadour and
the pretty village girl walked up and down uninterrupted.
Mr. Benoir was a good talker, and told Sophie charming
tales of his wanderings by sea and land. But, presently
— Sophie, thinking of it in the tragical after-days, never
knew how — he led the conversation round to the Suther-
lands, to Mrs. Arthur Sutherland particularly ; and Sophie
found herself telling him all she knew of that lady. It
was not a great deal. She remembered when she had
first come to St. Mary's, with her grandfather, and Mrs.
Sutherland, and Miss Augusta, from Cuba, and what a
sensation her beauty created far and wide. Then came
Mr. Arthur, who fell in love with her at once, as all St.
Mary's knew ; and then followed the time when she was
struck by lightning, and lay ill unto death. Then came
the journey back to Cuba; the dreary probation Mr.
Arthur spent at Maplewood ; and then his own departure
for Cuba, and the wedding which followed. Then there
was the long bridal- tour, the grandfather's death, and the
return with the foreign nurse and the baby. They had
been at Maplewood ever since, going out very little, and
seeing little company, and loving each other, as every one
knew, better than ever husband and wife loved one
another before.

Mr. Gaston Benoir listened to all this with a very
attentive face. He did not speak during the recital, until

MR. GASTON BENOIR.

139

his fair companion had done. Then he asked a question :
" These Sutherlands are very proud people, are they
not?"

" Proud ! Yes ; the proudest family in St. Mary s.
Mrs. Sutherland would not think a princess too good for
her son. If Miss Rohan had been less of a beauty, and
less of an heiress, and less grand every way, she never
would have consented to the match."

Pretty Sophie Weldon, in saying this, was not looking
at Mr. Benoir, or she might have been startled by the
change in his face. Such a look of triumphant malice
overshadowed it, such a derisive light flashed from his
black eyes, that Sophie might well have been staggered
to know what it meant.

" I think I hear some one calling you," was Mr. Benoir's
first remark ; and " Sophie, Sophie, where are you ? "
shrilly called in the eldest Miss Weldon's voice, confirmed
his words.

Sophie, only too happy to be just where she was,
frowned ; but Mr. Benoir, with all his politeness, looked
relieved as he led her back to the house. The other Trou-
badours, scattered about the balcony smoking and reading,
smiled significantly as the pair came up ; but Mr. Benoir
paid no attention to any of them. He turned off" up the
road, walking slowly ; and one of the Troubadours, taking
his pipe out of his mouth, hailed him :

" I say, Benoir ! where are you bound for ? "

"To see the lions of St. Mary's," Mr. Benoir replied,
without looking round.

" And don't you want company," pursued the speaker,
winking at a fellow-Troubadour.

" Perhaps so ; but not yours ! "

With which rebuff" Mr. Benoir walked on. Not to St.
Mary's, however. A sudden bend in the road hid him
from sight, as he turned his back upon the pretty village,
and bent his steps in the direction of Maplewood.

" At last ! " Mr. Gaston Benoir was thinking, as he

140

A wife's tragedy.

walked along, " at last my time has come ! I have waited
for it many a year. I have travelled over land and sea
until I have almost given up in despair, when lo ! I come
to this one-horse village, in a lost comer of Maine, and
find my Lady Highropes. At last my time has come !
Old Rohan had the reins in his hands long enough ; but
it is my turn now. What a pity he's dead ! I owed him
a long debt of hatred ; and pretty Eulalie must pay his
share as w^ell as her own. At last ! at last ! Gaston Ben-
oir, your lucky star is in the ascendant ! No wonder she
fainted at the concert. She'll come through more than
that before I have done with her. Good-bye to the Trou-
badours, my future's made ! "

CHAPTER XIII.

MR. BENOIR's letter.

THE great iron gates of Maplewood stood wide open
as Mr. Benoir drew near, as if inviting him to
enter. He paused for an instant to glance at the pros-
pect, the broad sweep of the carriage-drive, the waving
trees, the gleams of bright parterres, the plash of distant
fountains, and the stately old house just showing in
glimpses in the distance. The songs of countless birds
made the air melodious ; the J une sunlight lay in golden
sheets on the velvet sward; the hush of the place was
deep and unbroken in its noonday summer rest.

" A fine old place," Mr. Benoir thought; "a place a man
might be proud of ! And Eulalie Rohan is mistress of all
this, and the wife of an honourable gentleman. A proud
man this Mr. Sutherland, they tell me, and come of a
proud race. All the better, I'll lower his pride for him
one of these days, or I'm mistaken."

He entered the wide open gates, and walked up the
broad gravelled drive. For nearly ten minutes he went
on without meeting any one ; then a bend in the drive
brought him in view of a rose garden, where a gardener
was at work. The man looked up at the sound of foot-
steps and stared at the stranger.

" My good man," Mr. Benoir said, condescendingly, " I
hope I don't intrude. I am a stranger here, and, seeing
the gate open, took the liberty of entering. If I trespass,
I will leave."

The gardener touched his hat to the handsome and
gentlemanly stranger.

142

A wife's tragedy.

" No, sir ; it's no trespass. Maple wood is free to all
strangers, by Mr. Sutherland's orders. You can go over
tlie grounds if you like."

" Thanks, my friend," Mr. Benoir said politely. " I
think I will."

He turned away, following the drive until it took him
to the lawn in front of the house. He paused, looking «,
thoughtfully up at its long, low, old fashioned-front.

"A fine old house — old and historic for this new land.
I wonder which is her room — I wonder if she is thinking
of me now. Oh, my pretty little Eulalie ! do you dream
how near I am to you this minute ? "

He walked on; for a servant girl, coming out, was
staring with open-eyed admiration at the dark stranger.
He strolled through the old orchard, through the woods
and fields ; and, coming round the edge of the house,
found himself on the grassy terrace, overlooking the sea.
He leaned over the iron railing, and looked down upon
the placid waves murmuring upon the shore.

" A nice place to commit suicide," Mr. Benoir said to
himself. " One leap over this railing into that calm, sun-
lit, treacherous water, and all one's troubles are ended.
My pretty Eulalie ! if I were in your place, I should know
how to defy Gaston Benoir ! "

The footpath through the woods to his left caught his
eye. He followed it, and found himself presently in the
half-ruined old summer-house where Philip Sutherland
had long ago fought with his despair. He sat down in
the rustic seat by the rickety table, and looked compla-
cently out at the pleasant view of the terrace which it
commanded. He sat there, and no shadow of the awful
tragedy so soon to take place within these four walls
came darkly over his mind to warn him. He sat and
looked out at the terrace, his mind in a state of soliloquy
still.

" A capital place for a rendezvous," thought Mr. Benoir.
"Silent as the grave, lonely as the heart of some primeval

MR. BENOIR'S letter.

143

forest. A murder might be done here and no one be the
wiser ! I wonder if Mrs. Arthur Sutherland ever walks
in that terrace ? If so, I could sit here safe and unseen
and have a look at her. I really should like to see her.
That pale-faced, fair-haired young lady, down at the
hotel, this morning, disbelieved me, I think, when I said
I never saw Miss Rohan. I wonder if she looks like — "

Mr. Benoir checked his own thoughts abiipptly to light
a cigar. When the weed was in good going order, he
rose up and sauntered slowly back again towards the
gates. The gardener was at work still, and paused, as the
stranger drew near, leaning on his rake.

" Well, sir," he asked, " and how do you like Maple-
wood ? "

" A charming place," said Mr. Benoir. " I had no idea
there was anything like it in St. Mary's."

" There's nothing like it far or wide ! " vsaid the gardener.
" And there isn't as old a family, or as rich now, as the
Sutherlands, in the State."

" Indeed ! I heard," Mr. Benoir said, politely, " that
Mrs. Sutherland was ill. She is better, I hope ? "

" Getting better, sir. She is able to be up, they tell
me. We'll have her out here to-morrow, may be. She's
uncommon fond of walking through the grounds when
she's in her health."

" I suppose she has her own particular walk, too ? "

" Yes, sir, yes 1 The terrace down there by the water.
That's Mrs. Sutherland's daily walk up and down when
she's well, and of moonli2:ht niorhts with her husband. It's
a lonesome sort of place, but she likes it best."

" There is no accounting for a body's tastes," said Mr.
Benoir. " By the way, I intend making some stay in ^t.
Mary's ; and if I should choose to come here occasionally,
would Mr. Sutherland have any objection ? "

" Why 1 — no, sir, I think not," said the gardener, on
whom the stranger's handsome face, pleasing smile, and in-
sinuating address had made a very favourable impression ;

144

A wife's tragedy.

" leastways, lie never does object, and he ain't likely to
begin with you. All that's wanted of visiters is not to
pick the flowers, and they may come as often as they
please."

" Mr. Sutherland is very kind, and I am much obliged
to him and to you. Good day, my friend. I'll saunter
up to-morrow again, I think, to kill time."

Mr. Benoir^as absent and distrait all the rest of that
day. Blue-eyed Sophie, fluttering around him like a
butterfly round a flower, wondered what was the matter,
and pouted her rosy lips to find how little notice he took
of her. He avoided his brother-Troubadours, and loitered
by himself in the orchard, smoking endless cigars, and
thinking and thinking.

The concert that night was very successful. Mr. Benoir's
singing charmed everybody ; but none of the Sutherlands
were present. So successful, indeed, was the concert, and
so crowded the house, that the Troubadours had big post-
ers put up next day to inform the good people of St.
Mary's, that, as a particular favour, they would remain
for the rest of the week.

Immediately after breakfast, Mr. Benoir started for
Maple wood, one pocket filled with cigars (for this myste-
rious gentleman was an inveterate smoker) and a novel
borrowed from Sophie in the other. He made his way
to the old summer-house without meeting any one, and
sat down on the rustic chair beside the old table to smoke
and read, and keep watch. But all his watching was use-
less. One of the gardeners and a maid-servant appeared
on the terrace for a few moments, but no Mr. or Mrs.
Sutherland. Mr. Benoir's watch, pointing to three, re-
minded him that two was Mrs. Weldon's dinner-hour,
and that he was hungry ; so he rose up, pocketed his
novel, and started for home.

The Troubadours stayed all week, according to pro-
mise, and every day found the handsome tenor at his post
in the summer-house. Not quite unrewarded either, this

Mil. BENOm'S LETTER.

145

patient watching ; for one day Mr. Sutherland appeared
on the terrace — he knew it was Mr. Sutherland from the
description he received of him — loitered up and down for
half an hour, as if to afford the watcher a good look, and
then retired.

" A proud man " — was the Troubadour's criticism while
he looked — " A proud man, who would prefer ten thou-
sand deaths to dishonour. You're a very fine fellow, and
a very fine gentleman, no doubt, Mr. Arthur Sutherland,
but I have you under my thumb for all that."

Mr. Benoir's extraordinary conduct puzzled his brother
Troubadours beyond everything. He had changed so
suddenly and unaccountably from being " hail fellow !
well met," the life of the company, to a thoughtful, silent,
and steady man. His prolonged absence, too, could not
be accounted for. They had traced him morning after
morning to Maple wood ; but, as the spies said, what the
dense did the fellow do there ? He couldn't have fallen in
love with Miss Lucy Sutherland that first morning, could
he ? Hardly, for he made love most devotedly to pretty
Sophie. It wasn't to see the place — once or twice would
surely sufiice for that. The Troubadours were puzzled,
and Sophie Weld on with them.

It was quite true Mr. Benoir made love to her between
whiles, he being no more insensible than the rest of man-
kind to the influence of azure eyes, golden-brown ringlets,
and rose-bloom cheeks. He could hardly be insensible to
the flattering import of rosy blushings and eyelid-droop-
ings at his coming. So he found time to do a little
courting, even while he kept that daily watch at Maple-
wood. But, right in the middle of his love-making, he
had a habit of breaking abruptly ofi" and falling into a
moody silence, and being a thousand miles away from
Sophie in half a minute. His handsome dark face would
cloud over as suddenly as an April sky ; and Sophie,
afraid of him in those gloomy fits^ would glance shyly and

146

A wife's tragedy.

wistfully at him from under her eyelashes, and steal away
and leave him alone.

Before the end of the week, the concert-going folks of
St. Mary's began to grow tired of the Troubadours, and
the houses they drew were wofully thin. So they made
up their minds to pack and start on Monday morning,
and were all ready to go, when Mr. Benoir, their very best
singer, electrified them by announcing his intention of re-
maining where he was.

" I entered into no engagement with you," Mr. Benoir
coolly said to the head of the Troubadours. " I merely
came here with you to kill time. Now that I am here, I
like the place, and don't choose to leave it just yet — that's
all."

" I say, Benoir, is it Maplewood or our Sophie that's
the attraction ? " demanded a Troubadour ; to which Mr.
Benoir's reply was to turn his back upon him and walk
away.

Sophie was in ecstasies, and set it all down to her own
account ; but, then, why was Mr. Benoir so moody ?
Surely she gave him encouragement enough, yet despite
all, that absorbed, gloomy, and distrait manner remained.

The daily visits to Maplewood were continued ; the
very servants there began to notice him now, but still all
in vain. Mrs. Sutherland was better, report said ; but,
let him watch as he would, she never appeared on the ter-
race. Did some secret prescience tell he was there, and
warn her to keep away ? Mr. Benoir got desperate at
last.

" I'll dilly-dally no longer," he said to himself, setting
his white teeth savagely. " I'm about tired of this game
of solitaire. If the mountain won't come to Mahommed,
Mahommed must go to the mountain. I can't go to my
lady, so my lady must come to me."

That evening in the solitude of his own chamber, Mr.
Benoir wrote a note. A brief and abrupt note, without
date, or address, and almost without signature.

MR. BENOm'S LETTEK,

147

" You know that I am here : and that I will not leave
until I see you. The time of meeting I leave with you —
the place I take the privilege of naming myself. The old
summer-house at Maplewood, facing the terrace, is the
best place in the world for a clandestine meeting.

" G. B."

Mr. Benoir took a great deal of pains with the address
on the envelope — "Mrs Arthur Sutherland, Maplewood,
St. Mary's." He had written the note in a bold, dashing
fist, but the address was in a pale, womanish scrawl, that
would not have disgraced a school-girl.

" If they see it," said the scribe to himself ; " they'll
think it was from a lady, and won't suspect. I rather
think, Mrs. Sutherland, these few lines will bring you to
it ! "

Mr. Benoir dropped this letter into the post-office, and
waited patiently for three days for an answer. During
those three days he forsook Maplewood, and played the
devoted to Sophie Weldon. On the third morning he pre-
sented himself at the post-office, and inquired if there was
a letter for Gaston Benoir. The postmaster fumbled
through a pile in the " B " department, and at last sin-
gled out one for the name. Mr. Benoir glanced at the
superscription. It was post-marked St. Mary's and the
address was in a delicate and rather peculiar female
hand. His fingers closed tightly over it, while a smile so
evil, so triumphant, so sinister, came over his handsome
face, that it altered so you would hardly have known
it. He had not patience to wait to reach the hotel. He
tore off the envelope the moment he was outside the
door, and went along the quiet village road, reading. The
note was as short and abrupt as his own.

" I will meet you to-morrow night at nine, in the place
you have named. Destroy this as soon as read."

That was all. Not even an initial at the end ; but
then, it was hardly needed. As Mr. Benoir looked up
from the paper, at the sound of an advancing footstep, he

148

A wife's tragedy.

found a lady passing by, staring at him as if he were the
eighth wonder of the world. It is a lady's privilege to
stare ; so Mr. Benoir lifted his hat politely, and walked
on. The lady was Miss Lucy Sutherland ; and, an instant
after, she stooped hastily to pick up something white,
lying in her path — the torn envelope of a letter, over
which her hand closed as if she had found a diamond.
Not until she was some yards away — not until she made
sure there was no living creature to watch her, did she
unclasp the envelope and look at it. No earthly emotion
could redden the pallid face of Lucy Sutherland, but it
almost flushed now, and her eyes kindled with a steely,
fiery gleam.

" So she writes to him," she thought ; " the wife of
Arthur Sutherland writing to this handsome strolling
vagabond. That was her letter he was reading as 1 passed
him. It is coming — it is coming — the day of her down-
fall ; and meanwhile I will keep this piece of paper — it
may be of service before long ! "

mm

CHAPTER XIV.

MR. BENOIR's shadow.

ETJLALIE SUTHERLAND sat in that favourite seat
of hers, the deep, curtained recess of the drawing-
room window, watching the summer night fall. It had
been a dull day — a day of hopeless chill and drizzle, with
a low, complaining wind, that had moaned and sighed
drearily through the trees, and a sky of lead closing down
over all : a wretched day, that unstrung your nerves, and ^
made you cross and miserable, and the highest-spirited
agree with Marianna, that " life was dreary."

The night closed in early this gray July day, and a
servant came in to light the gas. Mrs. Sutherland turned
T-ound — she was alone in the drawing-room — and forbade
her.

" I don't want lights yet, Martha. Where is Miss Lucy ? "
" In the drawing-room, ma'am, helping Susan to sort
the silver."

" Very well ; that will do. Mr. Sutherland has gone
out to spend the evening, so there is no need to light the
gas just yet. That will do."

The servant left the room, wondering, perhaps, at her
mistress's strange fancy for sitting in the dark, and Eu-
lalie sank back in her seat. There was just light enough
coming palely through the large window to show the
change which a few days' illness had wrought in the Cre-
ole's dark face. So thin, so haggard, so worn it looked,
you might have thought she had been sick for months

150

A wife's tragedy.

and the black, starry eyes looked unnaturally large and
bright. Some inward excitement or other sent a feverish
fire burning in their dark depths this evening, and on the
haggard cheek glowed two deep, crimson spots, quite for-
eign to her usual complexion. Her very stillness, as she
sat staring straight before her at the darkening day, was
full of the same suppressed excitement. Her long black
hair fell loose and uncared-for over the scarlet shawl fold-
ed around her, a silky mass of ripples and ringlets.

The house was very still. A golden canary-bird flutter-
ing faintly in its gilt cage over her head ; the tick, tick, of
a little French clock on the carved chimney-piece ; the
wailing of the evening wind, and the dull tramp of the
waves on the shore — all were sharply audible in the deep
hush. She was quite alone ; Mr. Sutherland had gone to
a dinner-party, reluctant, but with no excuse for absent-
ing ; Lucy was busy in the household department, and
the Swiss honne and the baby were up in the nursery.
So Mrs. Sutherland sat alone in the rainy twilight, look-
ing steadfastly out at the creeping blackness, and never
seeing it. Her hands lay folded in her lap, except when
she pulled out her watch to look at the hour ; but her
burning impatience, her intense, suppressed excitement,
showed itself in every line of her altered face.

As the dark day shut down in darker night, Lucy,
her housekeeper's task ended, came into the drawing-
room. A faint light from the hall illuminated the long
room, and showed her quick eyes the scarlet drapery, and
the tangled weaves of dead-black hair.

" You here, Mrs. Sutherland ? " she said, in a voice of
quiet surprise ; " and sitting in the dark ! "

Eulalie turned round, but in such a way that the deep
shadow of the amber curtains concealed her face.

" Yes," she said, trying to speak in her usual voice, " I
preferred the twilight. Ring for Martha if you wish."

" I wish ! Oh, no ! If there is nothing you want me
to do, T will take mj work up to my room and finish it."

MR. BENOm's SHADOW.

151

lb was otic of Miss Sutherland's unsocial customs to
take her work up to lier chamber of an evening, instead
of sitting with her cousin and his wife. Slie gathered
up her spools and cambric now, and left the drawing-
room, as was her wont. On the threshold she paused to
ask a question.

" Do you intend sitting up for Mr. Sutherland ? "

"Yes, I think so. Why?"

" Because it will be unwise. He will probably not re-
turn" until late, and you are not strong enough yet to lose
your night's rest. Good-night."

" Rest ?" Eulalie repeated, inwardly looking out at the
darkness with a sort of despair. " Shall I ever find rest
again in this world ? Shall I ever rest now, until they
lay me in that last home, where all find rest alike ? "

Tick, tick ! The golden hands of the little French
clock told ofi" the minutes of another hour, and struck up
a waltz, preparatory to striking eight. A watery moon,
struggling feebly through banks of rugged clouds, gleamed
athwart the blackness of the night, and hurriedly hid it-
self again in billows of black. The hush of the house
was profound. Eulalie sat in the stillness and darkness,
like a figure of stone. Rain-drops, pattering softly against
the glass, told the storm was increasing, and the wailing
wind was rising high among the rocking trees. The
French clock set up a lively waltz again — the hands
pointed to five minutes to nine. At the sound, Eulalie
started up, wrapping the large crimson shawl over her
head, and around her figure, crossed the drawing-room
swiftly, opened noiselessly the long window, and stepped
out into the rainy grass. Then a sudden panic of irreso-
lution seized her. The night was raw and dark, the wind
cried out like a human voice in agony, the trees rose up
around her on every hand, tall grim goblins. The roar
of the surf on the beach struck a chill of cold nameless
terror to her heart. The awful mystery of night and
solitude chilled the blood in her veins. She stopped,

152

A wife's tragedy.

afraid to go on, and looked back. Some one was entering
the drawing-room from the hall, and the dread of being
seen there counteracted that other dread. She went on
through the wet grass, and struck into the path leading to
the terrace. The memory of that night when she had
walked that path with her dead grandfather, and heard
the first warning of her mysterious danger, came back to
her, with a pang like death.

" Poor, poor grandpapa," she thought, " the danger you
dreaded has come at last. Thank God you have not lived
to see this night ! "

On the terrace she lingered for a moment out of breath.
She leaned against the iron railing, and looked down at
the black gulf of water, roaring at her feet.

" If the worst come," she thought, " and it were not a
crime, how easily one could escape, after all."

She drew back, shuddering at her own temptation, and
turned toward the tangled path leading through the wood
to the ruined summer-house.

"No, no, no!" she said inwardly; "never that! If
what I fear does come, there will be no need of suicide.
My days in the world will be few indeed. May Heaven
strengthen me to meet the worst! "

She had to feel her way among the trees along the
dark pathway. A faintly glimmering light from the
broken window of the summer-house told her the man
she had come to meet was there before her. Her heart
beat so fast that she turned faint and sick. For a mo-
ment only — the next she was rapping at the closed door.
It opened instantly, and Eulalie Sutherland and Gaston
Benoir stood face to face.

There was a moment's blank pause. A dark lantern,
brought thoughtfully by the ex-Troubadour, stood lighted
on the table ; and by its uncertain glimmer the two stood
looking intently at each other. Beside the lantern stood
a black bottle, and a strong odour of whisky and cigar-
smoke showed how the gentleman had beguiled the te-
dious time of waiting.

MR. BENOlll'S SHADOW.

153

They stood and looked at each other. Miss Sophie
Weldon had once remarked that Mrs. Sutherland and Mr.
Benoir resembled each other, and Miss Weldon was right.
There was a resemblance — something in the outline of
the face, in the peculiar beauty of the mouth and chin,
and in the full oriental eye, not sufficiently marked to
strike a casual observer ; but there. In that interval of
silence, during which the rain beat against the broken
windows, and the wind howled dismally through the
wood, the place looked strange and eerie enough, shadows
lurking fitfully in every corner, and the man and woman
mutely confronting each other. Only for an instant — all
Mr. Benoir's suave politeness returned then ; and, with a
low bow and an easy, off-hand manner, he drew forward
the only chair the summer-house contained.

" Good evening, Mrs. Sutherland," he said in a tone of
easy familiarity ; " pray take this seat, and accept my
thanks for the favour of this interview and your punctu-
ality. You see," pointing to the black bottle, and seating
himself on the table, " I brought a friend with me to
shorten the time of waiting. Pray sit down ; you will
fatigue yourself standing."

Eulalie sank into the chair, her dilated eyes, unnatur-
ally large and bright, fixed on his face with but one ex-
pression— that of intensest fear. She would have stood,
but she trembled so it was impossible.

" That is right," said easy Mr. Benoir, with a satisfied
nod ; " now we can talk comfortably. Were you surprised
to receive my letter ? "

" No."

" Ah ! I thought not ! You recognised me at the con-
cert that night — that is to say, you recognised my name
on the bills and fainted. Well, I don't wonder; it must
have been a shock. Do you know Mrs. Sutherland, you
gave me a shock, too, when you entered here five minutes
ago?"

She did not speak. Some subtle fascination, beyond

154

A wife's tragedy.

her power to control, kept her eyes riveted immovably
to his face.

" My dear Eulalie — pardon the familiarity, but you and
I don't need to stand on ceremony — you bear the most
striking. resemblance to your mother — you don't remem-
ber her, do you ? — and for one second, when you entered,
I fancied the dead had arisen. Your grandfather — he
was a sly old fox, too — must have known, if ever I saw
you, I should recognise you by the resemblance."

Still she sat silent ; still her widening eyes never left
his face. Mr. Benoir, no way disconcerted, talked on.

" You don't speak, Mrs. Sutherland, and you look
frightened, I think. Don't be alarmed ; there is not the
slightest occasion, I assure you. I am the most conscien-
tious of mankind where ladies are concerned, particularly
to my own — "

He stopped. Eulalie had held out both hands with a
sort of gasping cry.

" Don't ! " she said, " don't ! don't ! don't ! If you have
any mercy, spare me ! "

" My dear child," said Mr. Benoir, " if you cry out like
that, some one may hear you. Compose yourself ; I
would not distress you for the world, especially in our
first interview. By- the -bye, won't they miss you in
there ? " nodding toward the house.

" No."

" Does that pale-faced, fair-haired young woman, Miss
Sutherland, know you are out ? "
" I think not."

" That's right ; keep her in the dark ; she's as keen as a
razor, that demure damsel. And now let's come to busi-
ness ; for it's confoundedly raw in here, and I have a long
walk before me in the wind and rain. How long have
you known your own story ? "

" Not three years."

" Ah ! that cunning old fox kept it as long as he could,
You kuew it before you were married ? "

MR. BENOIR's shadow.

155

" YevS," she answered, shivering and drawing her shawl
closer around her.

" Mr. Sutherland doesn't know, of course ? "
" No."

" No one in all this big world knows it but you and
I?"

" No one."

Mr. Benoir's black eyes flashed with triumphant malice;
Mr. Benoir's handsome face wore the look of a demon.

" Then, my pretty little Eulalie, you are utterly and en-
tirely and irrevocably in my power ! Mine almost body
and soul ! "

She rose up, came a step forward, and fell down on her
knees before him, holding up her clasped hands.

*• Spare me ! " she cried ; " for God's sake have mercy
on me ! I am in your power beyond earthly hope ; but
be merciful, as you expect mercy. For my husband's
sake, for my child's sake, for my dead mother's sake,
have mercy ! "

His face darkened and grew stern as he looked down
on her from under his bent black brows.

" Get up, Mrs. Sutherland," he said, " you look at me
with your mother's face, and speak to me with your mo-
ther's voice, but it only hardens me the more. What did
your mother care for me ? What right have I to cherish
her memory ? I have a long debt of vengeance to pay ofi".
I owe that dead grandfcither of yours a long score and I
am afraid you must settle it. Get up, Eulalie Suther-
land. I threaten nothing, I promise nothing. I only say
this : I am not a man to forget or forgive. Get up, I say,
and listen to me." He held out his hand to assist her,
but she shrank from his touch, and arose, precipitately.

Mr. Benoir burst into a laugh.

" You don't like to touch me, my pretty Eulalie ; there
is pollution in it isn't there ? Is it the black blood in my
veins you are afraid of, or what ? Don't be too fastidious,

156

A wife's tragedy.

my dainty little rosebud, you may find it in your way
hereafter. I say, have you got any money ? "
"No."

" You little simpleton ! Let me see that ring on your
left hand. A diamond, by Jove ! Diamonds are very
pretty — give it to me ! "

Eulalie shrank back.

" I cannot/' she said, " it is my husband's gift."
" Let him give you another then ; tell him you lost it.
Give it me."

" No, no," she pleaded faintly, " not that ! If you want
money, you shall have it, as much as you desire, but not
this ! "

" I will have this and the money, too. Give me that
ring."

She dared not refuse. She dropped the ring into his
extended hand, trembling before him. Mr. Benoir held
it to the light, the splendid jewel flashing forth rainbow-
fire, and put it complacently on his little finger.

" Thanks, my pretty Eulalie. It is a tight fit, but I
can wear it, I think. It will serve to remind me of you,
my dear, until we meet again. When am I to have that
happiness ? "

" Why do you ask me ? " said Eulalie, her voice trem-
bling pitiably ; " you know it must be whenever you
wish."

" Very true — but I like to be as accommodating as
possible. I don't know at present when I shall take a
fancy to have another chat in this airy little rendezvous
—when I do, I shall drop you a line. How much money
can you conveniently spare me to-morrow ?"

" How much do you want ? "

" Let me see," Mr. Benoir said, reflectively. " I like to
begin moderately. Suppose we say a thousand dollars."

"I cannot get you so much to-morrow," replied Eulalie;
" you will have to wait a day or two. Is there nothing
else — I must be going ?"

MR. BENOm'S SHADOW.

157

" Are you in such a hurry to leave me ? Well, I'm in a
hurry myself ; so it's no matter. No, there's nothing
more at present — I'll see you again before long, and again
and again. I don't mean to drop your charming ac-
quaintance, my pretty Eulalie, now that I've made it.
Fellows, like me, knocking about this big world and get-
ting more kicks than halfpence, don't often get into such
society as I'm moving in at present. Talking of- knocking
about, do you know, Mrs. Sutherland, I have searched
every inch of this habitable globe for you, and was about
giving up the hunt when I came here and met you.
You'll send the money in a day or two without fail ? "

" I will send you the money," Eulalie said. " Heaven
knows how gladly I would buy your silence with every
farthing I possess. But before you go — you have not
promised to keep my secret."

" No," said Mr. Benoir, getting off the table ; " and what's
more, I don't mean to promise. No, my pretty little
Eulalie, you are the image of your mother, and I don't
forget her or my own wrongs, or the debt I owe old
Kohan, and old Kohan's son, and I won't promise. They're
both dead, so they can't pay the debt ; but you, whom
they both loved, are alive and must. I hate to be ungal-
lant to a lady, particularly a young and pretty one ; but,
my little beauty, I really am afraid you must."

She covered her face with her hands, with a low, des-
pairing cry. Mr. Benoir pocketed the black bottle, took
up his dark-lantern, pulled up the collar of his overcoat,
pulled down his felt hat over his eyes, and turned toward
the door. Eulalie dropped her hands from before her
face — her face, blanched to the colour of death, and held
them out to him in a last appeal.

" Can nothing buy your silence ? Can nothing of all I
possess tempt you to be secret ? "

" Nothing, my pretty Eulalie."

" Have you no pity for me — a weak, helpless girl, who
}ias never wronged you ?"

158

A wife's tkagedy.

" My dear Mrs. Sutherland," Mr. Benoir said, with a sar-
donic smile ; "you are a Christian, a most devoted daugh-
ter of the Old Church, they tell me, and you know where
it is written 'The sins of the fathers shall "be visited on
the children, even unto the third and fourth generations/
Satan quoting Scripture, eh ? Good night, my pretty
little Eulalie ; don't stand too long here, or you may catch
cold. I shall expect to hear from you in the course of
the week — until then adieu, and au revoir !"

He raised his hat with ceremonious politeness, but
with that derisive smile still on his handsome, sinister
face, and went out. The path through the wood was in
inky blackness — the slanting rain drove in his face, and
the blast waved and surged, like the voice of an angry
giant, through the trees. The dark lantern he carried
served to show him the way through the gloomy wood-
land aisle.

" A bad night," thought Mr. Benoir, looking up at the
black sky ; " and a dismal walk from here to St. Mary's.
But if it were raining cats, dogs, and pitchforks, I should
go through it all for the sake of the interview that is
iust past. Poor little Eulalie ! what an unlucky little
iDeauty it is, after all ! If the debt I owe the Rohans
were a trifle less heavy than it is, I should be tempted to
take her fortune, every stiver of it, and then let her go.
As it is, that is out of the question, Gold is sweet, but
revenge is sweeter. No, my poor little, pretty little
Eulalie, there is no help for you. Oh, confound it I I
shall break my neck ! "

Stumbling along in the darkness, under the dripping
trees, with the wind and rain in his face, Mr. Benoir had
enough to do to preserve the even tenor of his way,
without looking behind him. A dark, shadowy figure,
flitting noiselessly along after him, was therefore unseen
— a figure that stopped when he stopped, that hurried on
when he hurried on, and that never lost sight of him.
A figure that bad followed him from St. Mary's earlier

MR. BENOIR'S shadow.

159

in the evening, that had watched hiin through the
grounds of Maplewood at a safe distance ; and that,
crouching under the trees behind the summer-house, had
waited until the interview within was over. A figure
that kept steadily behind him, like his own shadow — a
woman's figure, slender and tall, wearing a long black
mantle, with the hood down over her head. The shroud-
ing hood would have hid her face, even if there had been
light enough to show it — but she was only a blacker
shadow among shadows, moving swiftly and noiselessly,
as a shadow should. Mr. Benoir, absorbed in his own
dark, vengeful thoughts, never once looked back, never
once dreamed that the destroying angel was stealthily
and surely on his track !

CHAPTER XY.

KEBECCA, THE HOUSEMAID.

MISS LUCY SUTHERLAND, in her capacity of
housekeeper at Maplewood, was not very much
liked. The servants had a way of stigmatizing her as
" that sneaking cat," from a fashion she had of stealing
upon them unobserved and noiseless, and at the most un-
expected time. If Elizabeth the cook, or Fanny the
waitress, smuggled their young men in for lunch in the
kitchen, or a stolen t^te-a-t^te in the servants' hall. Miss
Lucy glided down upon them, shod with the shoes of
silence, pale and vengeful. Elizabeth the cook threw up
her situation after a week or two, in disgust.

" I ain't no fault to find with you or master, ma'am,"
Elizabeth said, in explanation, to Eulalie ; " you're as good
as gold, both ; and keep your places as ladies and gentle-
men should, and does not go a prjdn' and a sneakin' into
the kitchen, where you ain't no business, at all times and
seasons, hindering of folks from doing their work, and
hunting round like an old cat after a mouse, for followers.
I can't stand it, ma'am, and I won't ; so I gives notice and
leaves when my month's up."

Elizabeth left accordingly; and so did Fanny the
waitress, and Sarah the housemaid. Another cook and
waitress were procured, after some trouble ; for Miss
Lucy was hard to please in the matter of qualifications
and reference, and applicants were few and far between.
The housemaid seemed to be a still more difficult matter ;

REBECCA, THE HOUSEMAID.

IGl

half-a-dozen had appKed, being weighed, and found want-
ing, and the office was still open.

Miss Sutherland sat in the housekeeper's room, in an
arm-chair before a table, poring over accounts. A pretty
room, and sacred to Miss Lucy ; a bright-tinted carpet on
the floor, pretty pictures on the papered walls, lounges
and easy chairs scattered about. The table was strewn
with bills, receipts, and passbooks ; and Miss Sutherland,
pen in hand, was busy balancing her ledger. The morn-
ing sunlight streamed in an amber flood through the open
window, and the songs of countless birds and the scent of
lilac and rose-tree came in on the morning breeze. No
trace of last night's storm remained ; the sky was as blue
as Miss Lucy's blue eyes, and a great deal brighter.
Suddenly a shadow came between her and the sunlight ;
and, looking up, she saw Mr. and Mrs Sutherland, arm in
arm, loitering past, on their way to the terrace. Arthur
looked handsome and happy ; he was laughingly relating
some incident of the previous evening's entertainment, and
Eulalie looked as she always did, beautiful. Her long
black ringlets, falling behind her taper waist, were just
shown off by the white muslin skirt, and the rosy ribbons
that trimmed it lent a glow to the creamy pallor of the
Creole face. Young and handsome, rich and happy, lov-
ing and beloved — surely they were an enviable pair. Lucy
Sutherland's wrongs — the love she had given unsought,
the miserable, sinful, hidden passion that gnawed at her
heart still, and made her life a torment, rose up in wrath-
ful rebellion as she looked.

" How long the time is coming ! " she said to herself ;
how long, how long 1 Of what use to me are my suspi-
cions, or the tangible evidence of her own handwriting,
addressed to this strange man, without further proof.
Where w^as she last night, out in the storm ? She looked
like a living corpse, when I met her, stealing in, dripping
wet, and started back from me as if I had been a ghost.
How he bends over her, looking down in her sallow, baby

1G2

A wife's TEAGEDY.

face, and big, meaningless black eyes, as if there was no one
in the world but herself ! Arthur Sutherland, you are a
fool where-that pale-faced, foreign hypocrite is concerned ;
and I v/ill prove it to your satisfaction and my own some
day, before long. Well, what do yon want ? "

She turned harshly upon the servant who entered, and
whose knock she had not deigned to answer.

" Miss Lucy, there is a young woman in the kitchen
come after the housemaid's place."

" Who is she ? Where does she come from ? "

" From Boston, she says. She is a very respectable-
looking .young woman, and brings first-class references,
she says."

" Show her in, then."

The girl retreated for a minute, and re-appeared, show-
ing in the new applicant for the housemaid's place. Miss
Sutherland, something of a physiognomist, was struck at
the first glance by the young woman. She stood before
her, stately and tall, slender and graceful — a handsome
young w^oman, beyond a doubt. Her face was so thin
and dark, and the crimson of her cheeks and lips so living
and vivid, that it startled you strangely. Her eyes were
as black and glittering as glass beads, and her coal-black
hair was straight and thick as an Indian's. There might
have been something fierce, perhaps, in those glittering
black eyes ; something bitter and shrewish in the sharply-
compressed lips ; but she stood respectfully enough before
the young lady, to be inspected. Her dress was very
simple, and exquisitely neat.

" You have come about the housemaid's place," Miss
Sutherland said, at length, motioning her to a seat.

" Yes, Miss," the young woman replied, sitting down, with
her gloved hands folded in her lap, and looking stead-
fastly at Miss Sutherland out of her shining dark eyes.

" What is your name ? "

" Eebecca Stone."

" Where did you live last ? "

" With a family in Boston, Miss ; I have mj references

HEfeiiccA, THE Housemaid.

With me. i came to St. Mary's a few days ago, to see some
friends ; and hearing you wanted a housemaid, I thought
I would apply for the place. I am sure I can give satisfac-
tion, Miss."

The young woman spoke with a fluent ease and a quiet
self-possession that impressed Miss Sutherland. She took
another steadfast and suspicious look at her, and the black-
eyed young woman did not flinch.

" How old are you ?" was the next query.

" Twenty-five, Miss."

" And how long have you been at service ?"

" A great many years, Miss, in the very best families.
Here is my character from the last lady I lived with, Mrs.
Walker, of Beacon Street."

Lucy glanced carelessly over the paper.

" She speaks well of you," she said ; " we are very much
in need of a housemaid at present ; and I like your appear-
ance better than that of the other applicants ; so, if the
terms suit you, you may come."

" The terms suit me very well. Miss."

" Yes. And when can you come ? "

" Right away, Miss. I can get my things fetched up to-
night."

That will do. Ring the bell, please "
The new housemaid obeyed.

" I suppose you understand," said Miss Sutherland, "that
no followers are allowed ?"

A faint smile dawned and faded on the young woman's
face.

" I understand, Miss. I don't think I shall give you any
trouble on that head."

Again Lucy looked at her suspiciously. There was
something in her tone and manner of speaking unlike that
of any one of her class she had ever had to deal with. But
the handsome, bold, brunette face before her was as un-
readable as a page of Sanskrit ; and Rosa, the waitress,
came in before she could ask any more questions.

164

A wife's tragedy.

" Rosa," Miss Sutherland said, " this is the new house-
maid. Her name is Rebecca, and she can sleep with you.
She is going to remain now ; so fetch her up-stairs, and
let her take off her things."

Rebecca followed Rosa out ; and Lucy looked after the
tall, stately figure of her new servant, with a glance of
considerable interest.

" There is character in the gipsy face of that girl," she
said to herself; "those bold, black eyes of hers are very
large print indeed. I don't think she has been a housemaid
all her life, her assertion to the contrary, notwithstanding.
I shall keep my eye on her, I think."

Once again the sunlight was darkened. Mr. and Mrs.
Sutherland were loitering back in most lover-like fashion,
and the sight drove the new housemaid out of her
thoughts. She resumed her work, but with a dark frown
disfiguring her pale face. She could not grow used to
the daily sight of the happiness of these two. It half
maddened her sometimes to see them loving and beloved,
and blessed with all earthly blessings, and feel that it
was out of her power to blight that happiness. No In-
dian savage could have been more thoroughly cruel, and
cold-blooded, and revengeful, than she. She could have
seen the woman she hated tied to a stake, and burning
to death ; and folded her arms, and smiled at the sight.

Miss Sutherland kept her promise to watch the new
housemaid, but she only had her labour for her pains.
Rebecca's conduct was above reproach. No housemaid
had ever given such satisfaction at Maplewood before.
No duty was left unfulfilled, no work was slighted or
neglected. She had a rapid, tidy way of doing things,
that left her considerable time to herself, but she never
seemed to want it. When her regular duties were con-
cluded, and she might have amused herself gossiping in
the kitchen with her fellow-servants, she would come to
Miss Sutherland for sewing, and sit at one of the front
windows by herself, stitching away industriously. She

HEBECCA, THE HOtiSEMAIt).

165

was altogether such a model, this Rebecca, that Lucy took
quite a fancy to her, before the end of the first week.
This in itself would have been enough to make her fellow-
servants dislike her, but her silent and reticent manner
had already done that. Cook and lady's maid, waitress
and coachman, joined together in stigmatizing her as
" that stuck-up thing," and lost no opportunity of mak-
ing her feel their petty malice. But Rebecca had the
temper of an angel, and nothing ever came of it. The
black eyes might flash flame, the thin lips compress until
nothing remained of them but a crimson line, the dark
face might pale with suppressed anger, but no explosion
took place. If she had a temper to match those flaming
black eyes, it was well under control. The suppressed
fire might break out to terrible purpose, you could see,
but not while that iron will held it chained. She was
Miss Sutherland's puzzle, still — the reticence of the girl
matched her own, and baflled her, and she could learn
nothing more of her past history than she had heard that
first day. The handsome housemaid created more sen-
sation at Maplewood than ever housemaid created before.
Even Arthur was struck by her appearance.

" I say, Lucy," he said one day, when Rebecca swept in
her stately way across the drawing-room, with baby
Eulalie in her arms ; " where did you pick up this new
handmaiden ? She looks more like an Indian queen than
an everyday domestic."

Lucy explained.

" She's a remarkable-looking young person," said Mr.
Sutherland, stretching himself on a lounge, and opening
the morning paper : " and very decidedly good-looking.
She'll have all the stable-boys about the place falling in
love with her, if you're not careful, Lucy."

But Rebecca kept stable-boys and everything else mas-
culine at a discreet distance. They might admire those
flashing black eyes, and tar-black tresses, but they must
admire afar off. She never gossiped, she never flirted,
K

166

A WII^E S TRAOED^.

she never idled, this remarkable new housemaid. With
the plain sewing Miss Sutherland gave her, she would sit
at one of the front windows and work as if her life de-
pended on it until the stars shone in the sky. She was the
pink and perfection of housemaids, but Lucy Sutherland
was not satisfied. All secrecy, and self-suppression, and
industry only made her the more suspicious.

" Why is she so secretive of her past life ? " she thought;
" why does she avoid her fellow-servants, and keep
steadily to herself ? Why is she in so much hurry with
her proper work, and so fond of sitting sewing at the front
windows ? There is more in all this than meets the eye."

Miss Sutherland, as usual, was right. Rebecca, the
housemaid, like herself, was on the watch ; and the per-
son watched for came in the beginning of the second
week. It was a sultry August evening — not a breath of
air stirring the maples and hemlocks, and the setting sun
piercing their greenish gloom with long lances of red fire.
The girl sat watching the western sky, flooded with the
scarlet glory of the sunset, and crossed with billows of
yellow gold. The red light flashed back from her brilliant
eyes, and wove gleams of fire in the waves of her ink-
black hair, gilded the roses on her cheeks, and lighted her
bright, dark face with a new beauty. She sat with her
chin on her hand, looking at all this glory of colouring,
her work, for once, dropped idly in her lap — lost in
thought. The quiet home was as still, this hot August
evening, as the enchanted castle of the Sleeping Beauty.
No sound louder than the slipping of a snake among
the dry underbrush, the chirping of a restless bird in
its nest, or the mysterious fluttering of leaves stirred
by no wind, came to disturb her reverie. The sound of
the sea was like the faint, ceaseless sound of an aeolian
harp, and Maplewood was hushed in the deep calm of
eventide. The servants had drawn their chairs out into
the cool porch, and were enjoying themselves there ; but
this unsocial Rebecca had no desire to join them. She

REBECCA, THE HOUSEMATD.

167

sat there as still as if the calm enchantment of the place
and hour had fallen upon her, too ; or as if, like the Sleep-
ing Beauty, she waited for the coming of the prince to
rouse her to life.

Slowly, out of the sunset sky, the blaze of the sunset
fire died. Slowly it paled and faded, and the big white
August moon sailed up, serene amid the constellations in
the deep-blue arch. With the moonlight came the prince,
as if he belonged to it, heralded by vapoury, scented circles
of cigar smoke. Darkly splendid — handsome enough for
any earthly prince — Mr. Gaston Benoir lounged up the
avenue, smoking at his ease. Beauty unadorned is some-
thing very nice, no doubt ; but beauty adorned in the
height of the fashion is something considerably nicer.
The ex-Troubadour had rejuvenated his outward man
within the last week, and appeared now arrayed within
an inch of his life, but in perfect taste. Very few could
have looked at Mr. Benoir, thus dressed, and in the dusky
splendour of his southern beauty, without turning to look
again, as they might at some exquisite picture. The hand-
some housemaid, from her post at the window, looked at
him with a strange, wild fire gleaming in her black eyes.
There was something fiercely-passionate, eager, and ten-
der, withal, in that look ; and the colour came and went
on her face, and her breath caught itself in fluttering
gusts.

" At last ! " she said, between her set teeth, " at last —
at last he has come ! "

Screened by heavy damask curtains, the girl sat and
watched him, with that dusky fire in her eyes, and that
passionate light in her face, until he turned off" round an
angle, and was hid by the trees. The last rays of the day-
light had faded ; the moon's silver radiance had flooded
the trees and lawns and gardens and terraces with the
light of day. Rebecca rose up, pale with inward excite-
ment, ran up to her room, threw a black shawl loosely
over her head, came noiselessly down stairs, and left the

168

A wife's tragedy.

house unobserved. There had been a dinner-party that
day, and the family were assembled in the drawing-room.
Miss Lucy, ever on the watch, was safely out of the way.
Out in the moonlight, Rebecca turned in the direction of
the seaview terrace, the path Mr. Benoir had taken, and
beheld that gentleman leaning lightly on the railing,
smoking still, and watching the boats gliding in and out
of the moonlight. The housemaid stood still in the shadow
cast by a clump of cedars, and waited. He had not heard
her, and, enjoying his cigar and the view of moonlight on
the ocean, was very slow in turning round. Her dark
dress and the gloom in which she stood kept him from
seeing her at first, but she let the shawl slip loose off her
head, took one step forward into the light, with his name
on her lips : " Gaston ! "

CHAPTER XVI.

A LITTLE TANGLE IN MR. BENOIR's WEB.

MR. GASTON BENOIR was a gentleman whose
admirable self-possession was nob to be easily
disturbed ; but he started back now in something that
was very like consternation.
" The— devil 1 " said Mr. Benoir.

Lucy Sutherland's strange housemaid came fully out
into the broad sheet of moonlight ; her long, straight
black hair tumbling loose about her shoulders ; her greats
fierce, black eyes shining like ebon stars.

" No, Gaston, not your master ; only one of his angels.
You hardly expected to find me here, did you ? "

Gaston Benoir replaced his cigar, which, in the shock
of the moment, he had taken out — all his own cool, phleg-
matic self once more.

" Expect to see you here ! " he said. " I should as soon
have expected to see Queen Victoria ! Where did you
drop from, Rebecca ? "

" From New York last. I tracked you from that city
here." ^

" Tracked me, did you ! Come, I like that ! And what
are you doing here, pray ? " >

" I am the housemaid."

" The what ? " cried Mr. Benoir, aghast.

" The housemaid," calmly replied Rebecca ; " and I
flatter myself Miss Lucy Sutherland never possessed such
a domestic treasure before."

170

A wife's tragedy.

Mr. Benoir expressed his feelings in a prolonged
whistle.

" Well," he said, " Solomon — I think it was Solomon,
or some other wiseacre — says, ' There is nothing new
under the sun,' and I used to believe it ; but hang me if
1 ever believe it after this. Rebecca Isaacs a housemaid !
That goes a little ahead of anything I ever dreamed of."

" Rebecca Stone, if you please. There is no such per-
son as Rebecca Isaacs. Are you not curious to find out
how I discovered you were here ? "

" No ; it's clear enough. That confounded minstrel-
troupe, I suppose."

" Exactly. I followed you from New Orleans to New
York, from New York to St. Mary's, without pausing."

" The dense you did ! " said Mr. Benoir, with anything
but an expression of rapture. "And now that you're
here, what do you want. Miss Stone 1 "

Miss Stone's big black eyes flashed.

" What do I want ? And is it Gaston Benoir who asks
that question ? "

" At your service, Mademoiselle. I never change my
name."

She stood and looked at him — very white, her black
eyes fierce and wild in the misty moonlight.

" Then you have nothing at all to say to me, Gaston
Benoir ? "

" No, my dear," said Mr. Benoir, taking her fierce re-
gards very quietly ; " nothing that I know of, except —
good night."

He lifted his hat, and was walking away ; but Rebecca,
the housemaid, stepped before him, and barred his path.
With her wild black hair falling loose about her — her
deadly pallor and flaming eyes, she looked like some dark
prophetess of other days, or some tragedy-queen of modern
times.

" No," she said, in a voice deep, suppressed, but none
the less threatening. " No, Gaston — we do not part like

A LITTLE TANGLE IN MR. BENOIR'S WEB. 171

this. I have not travelled over land and sea, for many a
weary day and night, to be left at your sovereign plea-
sure. No, Gaston, not good night yet ! "

" As you please, my dear Rebecca ; only this place be-
ing open to every one, and the distance to my hotel of
the longest, do be good enough to cut it short."

The suppressed passion throbbing in the girl's white
face might have warned him ; but he was not to be
warned. He stood, leaning carelessly against the trunk
of a tree, slowly puffing out clouds of scented vapour, the
moonlight illuminating his handsome face, and flashing
back from the diamond ring he wore on his little finger.
Provokingly nonchalant he stood there, returning Re-
becca's fiery glare with supremest unconcern.

" My dear girl," he said, starting up, before the passion
she was holding in check would permit her to speak ;
" if we have to enjoy a tete-a-tete by moonlight, we really
must not stand here. Take my arm, and come this way ;
I know a nice secluded path, where you can talk and I
can smoke to our hearts' content, unobserved. By the
way, I hope you don't dislike my cigar — you usen't to, I
remember. Ah ! this is quite like old times, is it not,
Rebecca ? "

He drew the girl's arm within his own, and led her
down an avenue, lonely enough for anything ; where
quiet maples shut out even the moonlight. A few bright
rays, slanting through the boughs, made lines of light
on the turf ; and no sound but the solemn murmer of the
sea and trees awoke the echoes of this lonesome forest
aisle. Perhaps it was the solemnity of the place — per-
haps it was something in her companion's last words
that made the girl's gipsy-face alter so. The white fury
there an instant before vanished, and a look of impas-
sioned appeal and despairing love came there instead.
She clasped both hands round his arm, and looked up in
his handsome face, with all a woman's love, and despair,
ancj hope, in her great black eyes,

172

A wife's tragedy.

" Old times," she said. " Oh, Gaston ! you have not
forgotten old times ? "

Some memory of the past rose up from her heart and
choked her voice. Mr. Benoir took out his cigar and
daintily knocked off the ashes with the tip of his little
finger.

" Forget ! of course not. Any more than I ever forget
your own dark face, my gipsy ! Oh, no ; I have an ex-
cellent memory, 1 flatter myself."

" And remembering, you could meet me as you did,
and speak to me as you did, not two minutes ago. Oh,
Gaston, you have nearly broken my heart."

Again there came that hysterical choking in her throat.
Mr. Benoir took out his cigar once more in some alarm.
If anything in this mortal life disturbed his equanimity,
it w^as a scene, and there seemed considerable danger of
that annoyance just at present.

" Now, Rebecca, don't ! don't, I beg ! don't make a
scene. Don't agitate yourself, my dear girl ! it will do
you no good, and it will ruffle my feelings beyond de-
scription. Say what you want to say quietly — there is
nothing in this world like doing things quietly ; and the
worst of you women is, that you never can be brought
to understand it. You will flare up ; you will go off into
hysterics at a moment's notice ; you will persist in being
agitated, and ecstatic, and enthusiastic and ridiculous in
the extreme. It is a universal failing of the sex, lament-
able to a degree. Calm yourself, my dear Rebecca ; take
your time ; don't be in a hurry. Say what you want to say,
by all means ; but do it with Christian composure, I beg."

The black-eyed housemaid listened to this harangue as
if she neither heard nor comprehended. Both hands were
still clasped round his arm — ^the bold, bright eyes, looking
straight before her, not at the leafy arcade through which
the moonrays sifted, but into the past, were soft and misty
with love's remembrances. Mr. Benoir, resuming his cigar,
regarded his fair companion in some perplexity.

A LITTLE TANGLE IN MR. BENOIR'S WEB. 173

"If pretty little Sophie were here now," he thought,
" wouldn't there be a row ! Thank goodness she's not.
Confound the women ! what a nuisance the whole race
are ; and this she-devil beside me, the worst of all ! "

" Gaston," said the girl, " you loved me once ; in those
old days, when I was so very, very happy, when I believed,
and trusted, and loved you with my whole heart. Gaston,
you deserted me — no, do not deny it ; you know you did.
You grew tired of my dark face, and wild black eyes ; and
you left me. Once I thought, before I knew you, that no
man could do that and live. I am a Jewess, and I sup-
pose that there is fierce blood in my veins ; but I loved
you so well ! — oh, so well, Gaston, that you never can
fathom one iota of that passionate worship. I loved you
so well that I forgave your desertion, and became a cow-
ard ; as poor, pitiful and weak a craven as any love-sick
woman can be. I followed you here, caring nothing for
long, weary days of travel, for hunger, sleepless nights,
for no toil, or trial, or disappointment, so that I found you,
so that I won you to love me again. I have found you,
Gaston ; and now, is all the love of other days dead so
soon for poor Rebecca ? "

She looked at him with a look that is sometimes seen
in the eyes of dogs, crouching at their master's feet, ex-
pecting a blow. Usually her colour was bright enough ;
but the pale, cold moonlight itself was not paler than
her face now.

Mr. Benoir had smoked out his cigar, and threw it
among the ferns and strawberry vines, where it glowed
like a red sinister eye watching them.

" My dear Rebecca," Mr. Benoir began, in an expostu-
lating tone, " I told you not to excite yourself — to be calm ;
and you are excited, and you are not calm. You are as
white as a ghost, and your big black eyes are flashing
sparks of fire. Come, be a good girl ; give me a kiss, and
make up friends."

This was soothing ; but, perhaps, not as satisfactory an

174

A wife's tragedy.

answer as could be wished. Mr. Benoir kissed her as
composedly as he did everything else"; and the girl's head
fell on his shoulder with a great gasping sob. Esau sold
his birthright for something to eat — characteristic of the
sex ; had Esau been a woman, he would have sold it for
a kiss, and thought he had a bargain ! You see, a woman
madly in love is blind, mad, and a fool ; let the happy man
tell her black is white, and she will believe him, against
the evidence of her own eyesight and the assertion of all
the world. Young women with big black eyes and tar-
black hair are apt to love and hate pretty strongly ; and
really Mr. Benoir was as handsome as an angel. " Love
me little, love me long," is the most sensible of old adages
— this love at furnace heat is not the kind that lasts ; and
its unhappy victims, tortured by it for a time, are very
likely to go off into the other extreme of hatred and ab-
horrence at a moment's notice.

Mr. Benoir came to a halt in the moonlit arcade, and
put his arm round Lucy Sutherland's housemaid's waist
— it was the least any young man, not a St. Kevin, could
do — and waited with exemplary patience for a fit of hys-
terical sobbing to pass off.

" It's very odd," said Mr. Benoir to himself, philoso-
phically, the nature of these women. Now if I had told
this girl to go to the dense, and be done with it, she would
have flared up no doubt — she's the kind to do it — but she
would not have shed a tear. Instead, for the sake of
peace and quietness, T give her a kiss, which, I suppose is
what she wants, and lo ! she drops down and drenches my
coat-collar immediately. I wish I had never made love
in my life. I wish I was well out of this scrape. Rebecca
Isaacs is not the kind of woman one can court for pastime
and desert at pleasure. I shall have to tell lies by the
yard to keep her quiet for the present, at least."

As telling lies was quite in Mr. Benoir's line of life, and
as he was as perfect in the art as it is possible for poor
human nature to be, it was no difficult task to deceive a
woman who loved him.

A LITTLE TANGLE IN MK. BENOIR'S WEB. 175

" I acted wrong in going off as I did, beyond a doubt,"
Mr. Benoir admitted, with captivating frankness. " I
don't ask you to excuse that, Rebecca ; but believe me
when I tell you no other has taken your place. I am not
the sort of fellow to fall in love and out every other week,
and I always intended when I had a few thousand saved
to go South and be married. I knew you would wait for
me, Rebecca ; but, somehow, the thousands are very slow
in coming. What with going round, and one thing and an-
other, a fellow's money goes before he knows it, and it is as
much as he can do to keep himself, much less a wife.
There, you have it ; and I never mean " — said Mr. Benoir,
w^ith the air of a Spartan — " to marry until I can support
a wife as a wife should be supported."

" Gaston," Rebecca said, her dark eyes soft and beauti-
ful in their new and happy light ; " do you think one who
loved you would care for your poverty ? Oh, my love !
you know me better than that."

" And I know myself," said Mr. Benoir, firmly. " I care
for you a great deal too much to entail on you the trials
of a poor man's wife. No, Rebecca, you must have faith
in me, and wait a little longer. My prospects are brighter
just at present than they have been for years."

Some secret exultation in his tone that he could not
quite repress made the girl look at him, and notice, for
the first time, the new broadcloth suit and flashing dia-
mond ring.

" You have a prosperous look, Gaston," she said. " What
are the prospects of which you speak ? "

" Ah ! " said Mr. Benoir, mysteriously, " that is my se-
cret. A little speculation, my dear — a speculation, that,
I think, will make me a rich man."

" Is it anything connected with Mrs. Sutherland ? " she
asked.

Mr. Benoir stood still, abruptly, his dark face paling, his
eyes full of sudden alarm.

" Mrs. Sutherland ! " he repeated. " What do you know
of Mrs. Sr^therland, Rebecca Isaacs ? "

17 G A LITTLE TANGLE IN MR. BENOIR's WEB.

" So," said Rebecca, quietly, " I see I am right. It was
Mrs. Sutherland, then, who met you last Thursday night
in the summer-house over there. I never was quite sure
of it until now."

With that startled pallor still on his face, the ex-Trou-
badour grasped the girl's arm with a grip that made her
wince.

" I say, Rebecca," he cried, his eyes fierce, his mouth
stern, " I want to know what this means. How came you
to know anything of my meeting Mrs. Sutherland in the
summer-house ? Have you been at your old tricks — act-
ing the spy ? "

" Yes. Let go my arm, sir ! You hurt me ! "

" I shall hurt you worse, perhaps," said Mr. Benoir, be-
tween his set teeth, " before I have done. Tell me what
you have heard ? "

" I have heard nothing. Let go my arm, I tell you,
Gaston ! You hurt me ! "

" You heard nothing I " said Mr. Benoir, slightly releas-
ing his grasp, but still stern and pale. " How do you
come to know anything at all of the matter, then ? "

" Simply enough," Rebecca replied. " I came to St.
Mary's that very day, and stopped in the hotel opposite
yours. From my window I watched you loitering all the
afternoon, in and out, on the verandah, smoking and read-
ing ; and at dusk, I saw you start for Maple wood. I fol-
lowed you — don't scowl, Gaston — I had reason to distrust
you — followed you to Maplewood through the rain and
darkness, saw you enter the summer-house, and crouched
down outside to watch and wait. Half an hour after I
saw a woman enter ; a little woman, so muffled up that I
could not see her face, although I did my best. Neither
could I hear — again no fault of mine ; and when you left
the summer-house, I followed you back to the village. I
thought that night the woman who stole to meet you was
my successful rival, and how I hated her all unknown !
What dark thoughts the devil was putting in my head as

A wife's Tragedy.

177

1 walked after you in the darkness, perhaps it is as well
for your peace of mind not to know."

Mr. Benoir drew a long breath of unspeakable relief.
He knew the woman he was talking to, he knew when to
believe her, and when to doubt. She was telling the
truth now, and he was safe — she had not heard what had
passed, after all. Once more, he drew her arm within
his own — they had been standing all this time — and
recommenced his walk up and down the shadowy
path.

" I don't doubt it ! You felt like running your stiletto
into me — didn't you, my love ? Are you jealous still ? "
"No."

" And why not, pray ? "

" Because I have seen Mrs. Sutherland since that night ;
and I know it was she who met you in the summer-house."

" The dense ! How do you know it ? "

"I looked well at my supposed rival, Gaston — her
height, her gait ; and no one at Maplewood corresponds
with the height and gait of the woman who met you but
Mrs. Sutherland."

" Well," said Mr. Benoir, looking at her sideways from
under his eyelashes ; " and supposing it to have been Mrs.
Sutherland — Mrs. Sutherland is a very pretty woman :
the prettiest woman, I think, I ever saw — your pardon,
my love ; why are you not jealous still ? "

" Because Mrs. Sutherland does not love you ! "

" Ah ! Are you sure ? "

" Quite sure," said Rebecca, calmly. " Mrs. Sutherland
does not love you, and does love her husband with her
whole heart's devotion. No, Gaston, I am not jealous.
Mrs. Sutherland met you that night, I am convinced, but
not to play the false wife. Whatever brought her to
commit such an act of folly, love has no share in it."

" You are right, Rebecca," Mr. Benoir said, with sudden
gravity ; " love had no share in it. Since you know so
much, I may as well tell you more. Mrs. Sutherland did

178 A LITTLE TAKGLE IN MR. BENOIR's WEB.

meet me that night, very much against her will, poor lit-
tle woman ; bnt the secret that gives me power over her
is no guilty amour. She is no rival of yours, Rebecca.
She hates me, as I suppose an angel would hate Lucifer ;
and there is little love lost. Some day I will tell you
what this secret is ; some day, when you are my wife.
And," thought Mr. Benoir, considering the sentence men-
tally, " it is very likely I will, when you are my wife."

" When I am your wife," repeated the girl, wearily.

" Ah ! how very, very long that time is in coming. I
had hoped long ago to have been your wife."

" The time will come soon now, my dear. Be patient
and wait, and trust me a little longer, my own. And
now, before we part, tell me how you ever came to be a
servant here ? "

"I had to do something; and I heard you came here
every day. I found out a housemaid was wanted. I ap-
plied for the place, got it, and fill it admirably, as I told
you before."

" You're a wonderful girl," said Gaston Benoir, looking
at her in real admiration ; " a genius, m}^ gipsy ! Will
they not miss you within there ; or is it ' my night
out'?"

Rebecca laughed slightly.

" Oh, no ! 1 have no night out, and no followers. Miss
Lucy thinks me the pink and pattern of all housemaids."

" And how do you like Miss Lucy ? "

" Not at all I I should hate her, if it were worth the
trouble. She studies me, and I study her. I don't know
what she makes me out, but I have set her down as the
greatest hypocrite that ever lived."

" Strong language, my dear. What has Miss Lucy
Sutherland done to offend you ? "

" Nothing to offend me. We get on most amicably to-
gether, and T know her to be an arch-hypocrite all the
time. How she does hate Mrs. Sutherland, to be sure ! "

"Hates her, does she ? "

A WlFfe^S TilAGEDt.

179

" Yes, as only one jealous woman can hate another/'

" Jealous ! You never mean to say, Rebecca — "

" I do mean to say Lucy Sutherland is furiously jealous
of her cousin's wife. She hates her for her beauty and
her riches, and perhaps for her husband ! "

Mr. Benoir uttered a very prolonged " Oh ! "

" Trust one woman to read another, Gaston ! And now
for to-night, we must part ; Miss Lucy must not miss her
model housemaid. I don't think she believes in me as en-
tirely as she pretends ; and, while I remain here, I don't
wish to give her any grounds for suspicion. When can I
see you again, Gaston ? "

She clasped her hands again round his arm, and looked
up in his handsome face with eyes full of love and hope.

" Oh," said Mr. Benoir, " all times are alike to me ; but
if you don't wish to excite talk, I suppose our interviews
had better be clandestine. Let me see — this is Tuesday
— suppose you meet me here Friday evening again. And,
in the meantime, watch the Sutherland family — Mrs.
Sutherland particularly — and fetch as much news with
you as you can when you come. I feel an interest in
that little lady. I shall tell you when you are Mrs. Benoir."

He stooped and kissed her. They were out in the
moonlight ; and the gipsy face of the girl was radiant.

" Oh, my love ! my love !" she cried, her face dropping
on his shoulder, " you know I am your very slave ; ready
to obey your every command, ready to die for you, if it
were necessary. Oh, Gaston ! I have endured more than
you can dream of to reach you. If you prove false to
me now, I shall die !"

" No," said Mr. Benoir, laughing lightly ; " you don't
mean that, Rebecca ! It is T who .should die ! "

Rebecca lifted her head, a strange, wild fire in the
depths of her great black eyes.

" Yes," she said, slowly, " you should die ! "

Mr. Benoir recoiled a little. The girl was terribly in
earnest — terrible in her love, most terrible in her hatred.

180 A LITTLE TANGLE IN MR. BENOIr's WEB.

For a moment, a chill of cold fear made the young man
shiver in the warm air.

" Pshaw ! " he said, impatiently, " what are we talking
of ? Good night, and pleasant dreams."

There was a most lover-like embrace ; and then the
dark housemaid flitted into the house ; and Mr. Benoir,
with his hands in his pockets, went whistling softly on
his way, in no pleasant humour, however, for his brows
were knit, and his face stern.

" Confound the girl! " he thought ; " has Satan sent her
here to balk me ! I wish he had her, body and bones ;
for she is as near akin to him as anything in woman's
shape can well be. I have heard of the transmigration
of souls ; and, if there be anything in the matter, T fancy
the soul of a tiger must have got into her body. Rebecca
Isaacs, I wish the old demon had you ! "

!

CHAPTER XVII.

ON THE SCENT.

LUCY SUTHERLAND stood in the beautiful break-
fast-parlour of Maplewood, looking thoughtfully out
at the summer prospect of swelling meadows, w^here the
slow cows grazed ; of dark pine woods, cool and fragrant ;
and the nearer prospect of lawn, and glade, and flower-
garden, all steeped in the yellow glory of the August
sunshine. The early breeze, with the saline freshness of
the sea, fluttered the white lace curtains and stirred the
roses and the geraniums and morning-glories in the par-
terre below. The sea itself, boundless and blue, and
flashing back the radiant sunshine, spread out before her ;
and over all, land and sea, brooded the blessed calm of
country life. But Lucy Sutherland's blue eyes looked
neither at the green fields nor the blue sea — they were
turned inward in her dark thoughts. Very bitter thoughts
for one so young and fair as she looked, standing there,
with the sunshine making a halo on her fair hair, and the
sea wind toying with the azure ribbons trimming her
pretty morning-dress. Beautifully neat and fresh every-
thing she wore ; she looked a very fireside-fairy, delicate
and womanly in outward seeming, most evil and un-
womanly at heart. She was alone in the room — that is
to say, Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland were not down yet ; but
Rosa, the waitress, was setting the table, humming a little
tune to herself the while. Presently, Miss Sutherland
turned round.
L

182

A wife's tragedy.

" Rosa, has James gone to the post-office yet ? "

" Oh, yes, Miss, long ago."

" It is time he was back. Go and — "

Miss Sutherland stopped. James, errand-boy of the
house, came in with the letter-bag. Rosa laid it on the
table, finished her task, and left the room, and Miss Lucy
opened the bag and took out its contents. Some papers
for Mr. Sutherland, half a dozen letters, one for herself
from her mother, two for Mrs. Sutherland, one in the
irregular scrawl of Augusta, the other — Lucy dropped the
rest and stood looking at it.

" Postmarked in the village," she thought. " Who can
be her correspondent ? It is a woman's hand surely ;
but what woman in St. Mary's writes to Mrs. Sutherland 1
Can it be—"

She paused — stopped her very thoughts. An idea that
was like an electric flash made her clutch the letter sud-
denly and fiercely, her heart throbbing against her side.
The hall-clock struck nine — half an hour yet before Mr.
and Mrs. Sutherland would descend to breakfast. Hid-
ing the letter in a pocket in her dress, she went up-stairs
to her own room and examined it. It was a common
buft* envelope, the gummed flap stuck down in the usual
way. She held it up between herself and the light, but
the yellow envelope was too thick, not a word could be
made out.

"I shall know for all that," thought Lucy, looking
at the mysterious letter. " All is fair in war, they say.
Eulalie Sutherland has no female correspondent in St.
Mary's. I know as well as I am living that this letter is
from that man, Gaston Benoir."

Miss Sutherland rose deliberately, lit her gas, held a
knife in the flame until it was heated, and, with the ut-
most care and precision, opened the envelope without
tearing it. She took out a folded sheet of note-paper,
written in a bold, big hand, not at all like the spidery
tracery of the address, and ravenously devoured its con-
tents. It was very brief.

ON THE SCENT.

183

" My Dear Mrs. Sutherland : — Meet me to-morrow-
night at our former trysting-place, and at the same hour.
Don't let your pocket be quite so empty, please, as it was
the last time. Devotedly, G. B."

Lucy Sutherland's heart stood still. Intense surprise
was for the first moment her only feeling. Whatever she
had fancied, she dreamed of nothing so bad as this. A
fierce light of vindictive joy flamed up in the pale blue
eyes, and her little thin hand clenched itself, as if the
woman she hated was crushed in the grasp.

At last ! " was the triumphant thought ; " at last my
hour has come ! I have hated you for a long time, Eulalie
Rohan, but this repays me for all."

She refolded the letter, replaced it in the envelope,
moistened the flap with some liquid gum, and sealed it.
It wanted still ten minutes of the breakfast-hour when
she returned to the parlour, and she had time to arrange
the letters on the table before her cousin and his wife
came down. They entered together — Eulalie in a loose
white cashmere dressing-gown, leaning on her husband's
arm.

" Good morning, Lucy," Arthur said. " Our letters
have come, I see. Ah ! one from my mother, too. You
have one from Augusta, I see, Eulalie."

Eulalie tore it open eagerly, without looking at the one
below it. It was as brief and spasmodic as that young
lady's epistles generally were, and Eulalie looked up from
it with a smile.

" Augusta's opioion of Cape May is not very flattering
to the place or the people. Philip Sutherland is with
them, and she abuses him almost more thaa Cape May.
He is the dullest and most insufferable of idiots, she says,
and wanders about all day, smoking and bathing, and
lying on the sands, too lazy to live. Cape May is drearier
than the New York Tombs, and the men in it are a set
of simpering ninnies. Poor dear Augusta ! I am afraid

184

A wife's tragedy.

she was in very bad humour with the world and herself
when she wrote this letter."

She laid it down and took up the other. Lucy, silently
observant, saw the instantaneous pallor that blanched the
girl's countenance — the cold turn that made every line of
her face rigid. She saw how the hand that opened the
letter shook, and how the two were thrust together into
the pocket of her dress. She saw how effectually it had
taken away her appetite, as she sat with her chocolate
growing stagnant in her cup, and the toast untasted on
her plate. Mr. Sutherland, absorbed in his own corres-
pondence, saw nothing, so Lucy was good enough to call
his attention.

" My dear Mrs. Sutherland," she said, with unwonted
solicitude, " I fear you are not well. You eat nothing,
and you are looking pale."

" I am very well, thank you, " Eulalie said, but her
voice faltered ; and her husband, looking up, saw the
white change that had come over her.

" My dear Eulalie," he said anxiously, what is the mat-
ter ? Your face is as white as your dress. Are you ill V

" Oh, no!"

" Then, why are you looking so pale, darling ? "

She tried to smile, not brave enough to meet the strong,
loving eyes fixed upon her.

" Nothing, Arthur. I am perfectly well, I assure you.
My looking pale is nothing. Finish your letters, and
never mind me."

She poured the cold contents of her cup out, and passed it
to Lucy to be refilled. Arthur, a little reassured, resumed
his reading ; but every few minutes his anxious eyes wan-
dered from the paper to his wife's face. Lucy sat, pale,
calm and exultant, slowly eating her breakfast, and re-
volving in her mind a little plan of her own for the day.
She looked at her cousin as he laid down his last letter,
and found his anxious gaze still fixed on Eulalie.

"Arthur," she said, as if the thought had just struck

ON THE SCENT.

185

her, " who is that young man who seems to liave obtained
the entree of Maple wood so much of late ? "

" What young man ? " inquired Mr. Sutherland.

"That is what I ask you. A tall, foreign-looking,
rather gentlemanly person, dark, and very handsome."

" Dark and very handsome ? Why, that must be the
man whom Robinson, the gardener, was telling me about.
I forget his name — it has a foreign sound, too — Lenoir, or
something of that sort."

Eulalie arose suddenly, and walked to the window.
Her husband glanced after her in some surprise.

" Have you finished breakfast, my love ? "

" Yes, Arthur."

" And tasted nothing," said Lucy. " You really cannot
be well, Mrs. Sutherland."
" I am perfectly well."

"And what about this very handsome young foreigner ? "
resumed Mr. Sutherland. " You have not fallen in love
with him, have you, Lucy? Even Robinson was struck by
his remarkable good looks."

" No," said Lucy, quietly ; " I have not fallen in love
him. Are you aware he is here almost every day?"

" So Robinson tells me. It appears he has the good taste
to admire the place, and comes here to smoke, and read
novels. He is a gentleman of learned leisure, it seems, and
walks to and fro, smoking for a living."

" It is really very remarkable," said Lucy. " Are you
quite sure he has no sinister design, Arthur, in thus fre-
quenting the place ?"

" My dear girl, what sinister design can he have ? "

" Burglary. Your plate-closet is no common temptation."

" I am not afraid. The plate-closet is in your keeping,
my dear Lucy, and, consequently, quite safe."

" Well," said Miss Sutherland, rising, " if you feel no
anxiety, of course I need not. But if I were you, I would
ascertain whether this unknown person's intentions are as
he pretends."

186

A wife's tragedy.

In setting back her chair, she tried to see Eulalie's face,
but Eulalie evaded her. The vague distrust the Creole had
felt from the first of this pale-faced, low- voiced, soft-step-
ping cousin, had returned this morning stronger than ever
before.

Lucy rang for Rosa, and Arthur, coming over, put his
arm tenderly around his wife's little waist, and looked
down at the face she strove to hide by her falling curls.
She was conscious how deadly pale she was, and how ut-
terly unable to account for that paleness.

" My darling," Arthur said ; you are ill. Tell me, love
what is the matter ? "

She did not speak. Her poor pale face hid itself on his
shoulder, and her little hands clung to him, in the old
childish terrified way. She was such a weak, frightened,
timid little thing, this childish Creole wife, not a bit like a
heroine, that she could only cling there mutely in her
distress.

" Tell me, my dearest," Arthur said, more anxiously ;
" tell me what is the matter ? "

"[Nothing — nothing," Eulalie reiterated, trying to steady
her rebellious voice, and keep down her frightened heart-
beating ; " don't ask me, Arthur ; it is nothing — it is noth-
ing."

He looked down at the clinging hands, all he could see
for the tangled shower of curls, and something missing on
one of them, struck him.

" Where is your ring, Eulalie — the ring I gave you last ?"

She hurriedly snatched away her hand, and hid it in
the folds of her dress. It was a child's act, but she was
little more than a child in all things. Arthur stood in
wonder ; the ring had been his latest gift on her birthday
— a cluster diamond his paternal grandmother had worn
— an heir-loom in the family newly set.

" Have you lost your ring, Eulalie ?" he said with a
feeling of annoyance, in spite of himself.

" Yes."

ON THE SCENT.

187

Lucy, lingering near the door, heard this answer, and
passed out. Rosa was coming in, and Mr. Sutherland,
looking unusually grave, lifted his wife's face resolutely.
He could feel her cold and trembling ; and some shadowy •
mistrust, some cold creeping feeling that all was not right,
chilled him. He could see her face was colourless as that
of a dead woman, and her eyes wild with nameless dread.

What did it all mean ? He drew her gently out of the
room, his face troubled and perplexed. Lucy saw him,
half leading her up-stairs, and a cold, gratified smile passed
over her thin lips.

" Your torments are only commencing, Arthur," she said,
softly ; " only commencing. The pain you have wrung
my heart with — the jealous pain that exceeds all other
earthly torture — you shall feel in your turn. Mine was
hidden, no living soul mocked me with their pity ; yours
shall be known to the wide world."

An hour after, Lucy left the house, in bonnet and shawl,
and took the road to the village. It was a hot day — the
sun blazing like a wheel of fire in the serene blue sky, and
the young lady walked very leisurely. It was a long
walk, but she was neither flushed nor dusty when she
reached St. Mary's, and astonished Mrs. Weldon by her
unlooked for appearance.

" Dear me, Miss Sutherland," cried that good woman,
rising in surprise ; " who'd have thought it. Walk right
up-stairs ; the girls are there, and will be right glad to see
you ! Beautiful day, isn't it ? "

" Very beautiful," replied Miss Sutherland ; " so much
so that it tempted me out ; and feeling very thirsty, after
so long a walk, I thought I would step in here and trouble
you for a glass of water."

" Certainly, my dear Miss Sutherland. Come into the
parlour, and sit down, and I will fetch it up directly. And
how is that pretty dear, Mrs. Arthur ? "

" Very well indeed."

Mrs. Weldon threw open the parlour door, and announced

188

A Wife's trag^edY.

Miss Sutlierland to an audience of one. Only one of
the girls occupied it, and she sat embroidering a handker-
chief, and singing softly to herself at one of the windows.
She stopped in her song, and arose, looking quite as much
surprised as her mother had aone.

" Don't disturb yourself, Miss Sophie," said the 3^oung
lady, graciously, holding out her gloved hand. " I came
in for a drink, and your good mother would fetch me up.
I hope I see you well."

" Very well, Miss Sutherland," said Sophie, rather flut-
tered ; " pray sit down. "

" I thought the girls were here," said Mrs. Weldon, as
her visitor sank gracefully into a seat.

" No, mamma, they're all out. Shall I go and look for
them ? "

" By no means," interrupted Miss Sutherland hastily.
" I shall be going in a few moments. How pretty that is,
Sophie — is it for your wedding ? "

Sophie blushed beautifully, as she handed the hand-
kerchief to Miss Sutherland for inspection.

" I heard some rumour of your marriage the other day,"
continued the young lady. "Who is the happy man,
Sophie ? "

A man, smoking on the verandah, walked past the open
window, as she spoke, and the peach bloom turned to
brightest crimson on pretty Sophie's face.

" Is it possible ? " exclaimed Lucy Sutherland, really
surprised. " Is it possible you are going to be married to
Mr. Benoir ? "

" Hush, Miss Sutherland," cried Sophie, hastily, " here
is mother 1 "

Mrs. Weldon re-entered with a goblet of lemonade, and,
excusing herself, left her visitor with her daughter.

" Mother does not like it, you see, Miss Sutherland,"
said Sophie, still blushing ; " because Gaston, poor fellow,
was only a Troubadour when he came here, and has, she
says, no visible means of support. Mother suspects I

ON THE SCENT.

189

don't know what. She does not like poor Gaston, and
she will not give her consent."

" Oh, then you are engaged to Mr. Benoir ? "

" Yes, Miss Sutherland ; but it is a secret yet, you
know."

" You may trust me, Sophie. Why is it your mother
suspects him of not being all right ? "

" Well, Miss Sutherland, you see, when Gaston came
here first, a few weeks ago, he was poor — that is, he was
like the rest of the Troubadours, dependent on their con-
certs for support. I know that, because he told me so
himself. But of late he seems to have come into a for-
tune. He has lots and lots of money, and spends it like
water. He has given me and all the girls the loveliest
presents, and he wears a splendid diamond ring '. "

" A what ? " Lucy cried sharply.

" A beautiful diamond ring. Miss Sutherland, that must
have cost hundreds of dollars. And he won't give any
account of all this sudden wealth. That's what's the trou-
ble. He only laughs, and chucks me under the chin, and
tells me that he has found the goose that lays the golden
eggs. Now, Miss Sutherland, mother naturally doesn't
like this, and she suspects him to be all sorts of horrors,
and won't give her consent ; and I am just as wretched
as ever I can be."

Here Miss Weld on applied her handkerchief to her
eyes ; and Lucy Sutherland, with a strange eagerness,
watched the graceful figure of the elegant lounger on the
veranda.

"And he refuses an explanation to your mother also ?"

" Yes. He is too proud and high-spirited to stoop to
explanation where his word is doubted. He says that
it ought to be sufficient that he tells us he came by his
wealth honourably and fairly ; and mother ought to be
glad to get a rich husband for her daughter, without
hauling him over the coals as to how he obtained his
wealth. And so. Miss Sutherland, our marriage is put
off ; and I really don't know when it will take place."

190

A wife's tragedy.

Miss Sutherland looked at outspoken Sophie with a
thoughtful face.

" Do you know much of the previous history of this
lover of yours, Sophie ? Pardon my seeming inquisitive-
ness ; but I like you so much, my dear Sophie, that I
speak only for your good."

" Thank you, Miss Sutherland," said poor Sophie, grate-
fully. " I am sure you are very kind. No, I don't know
very much about Gaston, except that he was born and
brought up in Louisiana, somewhere, of French parents,
and came North, when quite a boy, to seek his fortune.
He has been knocking round the world, he says, ever
since, until he has grown tired of it, poor fellow ! and
now he wants to settle down, with me for his wife. I
am sure I love him with all my heart, and would marry
him and trust him, and be happy as the day is long, if
mamma wasn't so disagreeable about it. That's all I
know of him, Miss Sutherland ; and I am sure it is satis-
factory enough."

Miss Sutherland smiled, with something between pity
and contempt for the simple speaker, in her face. But
the girl was so earnest and womanly in her perfect trust
and faith in the man she loved, that she almost hated her
at the moment, too. Before she could speak, the door
opened, and the subject of all this talk, tired of lounging
and smoking in the hot sunshine, came in, and bowed
with well-bred ease to his lady-love's visitor.

Miss Sutherland returned the gentleman's bow with
uncommon cordiality for her; perhaps, independent of
the hidden motive that made her wish to propitiate him,
independent of the interest she must have felt in him had
he been ugly as Caliban, she was no more insensible to
the power of his remarkable beauty than the weakest of
her sex.

Mr. Benoir seated himself at one of the open windows,
talking in an easy, off-hand strain, as a gentleman address-
ing his equals. He ran the fingers of an aristocratically

ON THE SCENT.

191

small and shapely hand through his dark hair while he
conversed, and the flash of a diamond ring dazzled Lucy
Sutherland's eyes ; a ring she knew well — that had been
worn by fine ladies of the house of Sutherland before any
one there present was born — that had been Arthur's
birthday-gift to his false-hearted wife. What further
proof was needed of her inconstancy than this ?

"We don't see you often in St. Mary's, Miss Suther-
land," said Benoir, in the course of his free-and-easy re-
marks.

" No," said Miss Sutherland, composedly, " hardly so
often as we see you at Maplewood."

''Ah, yes !" returned Mr. Benoir, carelessly running the
hand on which the diamond glittered more conspicuously
through his hair. " I do frequent that charming home of
yours a good deal. A magnificent place. Miss Sutherland,
and an honour to its owner. Mr. Sutherland has my best
thanks for his kindness in admitting strangers within his
gates. Personally, I have not the pleasure of knowing
him. If I had, I should express my thanks in person."

" Mr. Sutherland will take them for granted," replied
Miss Sutherland, coldly, rising as she spoke ; her Suther-
land pride rebelling against this familiarity. " Maple-
wood is open to all who choose to enter. Good-bye, Miss
Sophie ; good-morning, Mr. Benoir."

Just deigning to bend her head in acknowledgment of
the late Troubadour's profound bow, the young lady left
the hotel, and began her homeward route. Mr. Benoir
watched her out of sight with an odd little smile on his
lips.

" A sharp young woman that, Sophie," he said ; " an
uncommonly sharp young woman. What brought her
here this morning ? "

Miss Weldon explained.

" Ah, for a drink 1 Is she a great friend of yours
Sophie?"

" Oh, dear, no ! " replied Sophie. '' She is a great deal

192

A wife's teagedy.

too proud. She has not been in our house for years, I
think, until that day you met her here first."

" And what brought her here that day ? "

" To see Fanny — she had a sore throat."

" Hem-m-m ! " said Mr. Benoir, in a musing tone. " That
was the day after Mrs. Arthur Sutherland's fainting-
fit?"

" Yes."

The odd little smile was on Mr, Benoir's face asfain.

" A sharp girl," he repeated; " a very sharp girl ! Don't
you think, Sophia, she saw my diamond ring ? "

" I dare say she did," said Miss Weldon ; " it was easy
enough seen, goodness knows ! "

Mr. Benoir got up, whistling, and went out again on
the verandah. Miss Sutherland was already out of sight,
slowly as she walked, musing profoundly. She was on the
scent now — nothing should stop her until she had hunted
her prey down.

" To-morow night they meet," sKe thought, as she walked
leisurely toward the home she was trying to make deso-
late. To-morrow night they meet. Very well, Mr. Be-
noir, I shall be present at that interview, too."

It was nearly mid-day when she reached the house. As
she entered the parlour, tired and a little hot, she found
her cousin Arthur lying on a sofa with a book. There
was an unusual gravity in his face. Lucy saw, as he
looked up at her entrance, anxiety about his wife.

" Have you been to the village, Lucy ? " he asked.

" Yes," said his cousin, dropping into a seat, " and I am
nearly tired to death. How is Eulalie ? "

" Not very well, I am afraid. She is lying down in her
room. Lucy, what is the matter with Eulalie lately ? "

He had to ask that question. He had thought and per-
plexed himself over the matter so long in secret that the
words forced themselves from his lips almost in spite of
himself. He got up in a feverish sort of way, and took
to pacing up and down the room. Miss Sutherland's blue

ON THE SCENT.

193

eyes gleamed pale flame as she watched him, sitting un-
moved, with folded hands. f

" She says herself there is nothing the matter. Can
you not take her word for it ? "

" She says that because she does not wish to make me
uneasy, but something is the matter, I am convinced.
Ever since that night of the concert, on which she fainted
so suddenly, I have noticed a most unaccountable change."

" So have I," said Lucy, " ever since that night. What
do you suppose was the cause of her fainting ? "

" The heat, of course — what else ? "

Lucy gave him a strange look that brought her cousin
to an abrupt halt before her,

" Lucy, what do you mean ? Was it not the heat ? "

" Very likely. I have said nothing to the contrary."

" No, you only looked it ! Lucy, if you know what ails
my poor girl, tell me, for Heaven's sake ! "

" I do not know," said Lucy, slowly, " and what I sus-
pect is my own secret."

" What you suspect ! " Arthur repeated, turning very
pale. " Lucy, Lucy, what do you mean ? "

" Let me ask you a question, Arthur. I heard your
wife tell you this morning she had lost her ring — the
diamond you gave her. ffas she found it yet ? "

"No."

Lucy dropped her blue eyes, and patted restlessly on
the carpet. Arthur stood before her, pale and anxious.

" No," he repeated, " she has not found it. Why ? "

Miss Sutherland's reply was another question.

" Arthur, do you remember the man we were speaking
of at breakfast ? "

" The man ? No— what man ? "

"His name is Gaston Benoir — the remarkably hand-
some young foreigner — he is from Cuba, I believe — who
prowls about Maple wood continually. You remember we
were speaking of him at breakfast — that is, you and I
were, for Eulalie got up and stood by the window."

194

A wife's tragedy.

"Yes, yes."

" Well/' continued Lucy, with torturing deliberation,
" I was in St. Mary's this morning, and, feeling warm and
thirsty after my walk, I stepped into Mrs. Weldon's for
a drink."

"Well."

" Mr. Benoir is a boarder there — has been ever since he
came here first (the night of the concert at which Eulalie
fainted), and he chanced to enter the room I was in talk-
ing to one of Mrs. Weldon's daughters."

" Well," reiterated Mr. Sutherland, never taking his
eyes oflf her face.

"Miss Weldon, without asking permission, took the
offensive liberty of introducing him to me. He is, as I
have said, exceedingly handsome, gentlemanly in manners,
and altogether superior to his station. He was dressed
in the height of the fashion, and wore on the little finger
of his left hand a diamond ring. Arthur, it was the ring
your wife has lost ! "

There was a dead pause. The shifting blue eyes of
Lucy Sutherland still fixed anywhere except on her cou-
sin's face, as she went hurriedly on :

" Perhaps Eulalie, when last out in the grounds walk-
ing, dropped it, and this man found it there. Ask her,
Arthur, if she wore it the last time she was out ; for I am
certain it is her ring Mr. Benoir had on his finger."

She was up, taking off* her bonnet and mantle, as a pre-
text for not looking at him ; but she knew for all how
stern and pale he was standing.

" Where did you say this man was from ? " was his first
question.

" From Cuba, but a native of Louisiana, Miss Weldon
told me."

Again there was a blank pause,

" You are sure it was Eulalie's ring ? " Arthur said, at
last.

" As sure as I can be. There could hardly be two so

ON THE SCENT.

195

much alike. What surprises me is the man's effrontery
in wearing it so openly, if he found it, as he must have
done."

"He made no attempt to hide it from you ? "
" On the contrary, he seemed rather anxious I should
see it."

Again there was a blank stillness. Again Mr. Suther-
land was the first to speak.

" Did Miss Weldon tell you anything more about this
man ? "

" Oh, yes ! She was full of the subject, and could talk
of nothing else. His handsome face has bewitched her,
it seems ; and the scheme of the universe holds no one
for her but this dark Louisianian. He is, she tells me, a
perfect mystery to every one. He came to the village
with the rest of those minstrels, as poor as a church-
mouse ; but when they were departing, he declined going
with them. He remained here ; and a golden shower
seems, in some mysterious manner, to fall upon him. All
of a sudden, and unaccountably to every one, his pockets
were full of money, his shabby-genteel garments replaced
by the finest and best ; and he spends gold like water.
Miss Weldon says, and makes herself and her sisters the
most expensive presents. The diamond ring astonishes
her most of all ; but I fancy I can account for that. Mr.
Benoir is an unreadable riddle."

" A riddle I shall endeavour to read, nevertheless 1 " ex-
claimed Arthur, with sudden resolution. " I shall have a
look at that ring he wears, and find out before the sun
sets if it is the birthday-gift I gave my wife."

He left the room hastily. Lucy, standing by the win-
dow, saw him, five minutes after, riding down the wind-
ing avenue where the shading maples waved.

CHAPTER XVII.

BROUGHT TO A BECKONING.

MR. SUTHERLAND rode in a very undecided man-
ner towards the village of St. Mary's. He had
cantered down the avenue rapidly in the first impulse of
the moment ; but, a little way beyond the gates, he checked
his speed irresolutely. He was disturbed as he never had
been disturbed before in his life ; and yet, by what ? By
a number of odd coincidences that, after all, might mean
•nothing. His wife had lost her ring, and Lucy saw it, or
one like it, on the finger of this very handsome young
Southerner. The man might be a gambler. A lucky
throw of the dice, a fortunate game of cards might ac-
count for his sudden prosperity and his wearing diamond
rings. There might be other rings like that his wife had
lost — like enough, at least, to deceive Lucy. He had
caused it to be set in a fanciful device of his own that he
could not fail to know ; but the more he thought of it,
the more he felt convinced that there had been a mistake.
And even should there not be, Eulalie might have lost it
somewhere on this very road, and Mr. Benoir, finding it
there, might wear it openly, in ignorance of its owner.
This latter surmise, however, was hardly probable. Dia-
mond rings are not lost and found like glass beads every
day, and no sign made. The ring must be his own, and
Lucy had made a mistake.

But Mr. Sutherland's course of reasoning did not satisfy
him, somehow. Lucy's words kept ringing in his ears —

BROUGHT TO A RECKONING.

197

" Late of Cuba, and bom in Louisiana." His wife was
late of Cuba, and born in Louisiana. How strangely
Lucy had looked at him ! How marked the tone of her
voice had been ! What had caused his wife to faint on
the night of the concert ? *' Not the heat," Lucy said ;
and on that night she had first met this mysterious for-
eigner, " late of Cuba/' whose beauty set every one talk-
ing. Arthur roused himself with a start and a shock,
horrified at himself for the course his thoughts were
drifting.

" What a jealous brute I am getting to be ! " he thought,
" when trifles light as air run away with my judgment in
this fashion ! My darling girl is over-nervous, over-sen-
sitive, and acts strangely, or appears to do so, without
knowing it. What if this man does happen to be a com-
patriot of hers ? What if he does wear a ring something
like that she has lost ? What if he is fond of spending
his time loitering purposely about Maplewood ? How is
he to be connected with that ? I am an idiot ; and my
poor little baby-wife is the dearest, and truest, and best
of womankind ! "

Mr. Sutherland rode into St. Mary's and straight up to
the Weldon House. He was no such unusual visitor
there as Miss Lucy, and good Mrs. Weldon greeted his
entrance as a matter of course. He had had the run of
the house from his boyhood, and rarely visited the vil-
lage without dropping in. His present call was of the
shortest ; for the gentleman he was in search of was not
in. He learned by a series of indirect questions that Mr.
Benoir had taken Miss Sophie, much against her (Mrs.
Weldon's) will, out driving, and would probably not
return until late in the afternoon. And having got on
the subject, Mrs. Weldon poured into Mr. Sutherland's
ears the story of Mr. Benoir's wooing, and her distress
thereat,

" I must have a look at this modern Fortunatus, Mrs.
Weldon," he said, carelessly, " for pretty Sophie's sake j
M

198

A wife's tragedy.

and then 1 will be better able to give you an opinion in
the matter. If I drop in about seven this evening am I
likely to see him ? "

" You'll be sure to see him, Mr. Sutherland. Seven is
our tea-hour, and Mr. Benoir is as regular as clock-work
generally at his meals. It's very good of you, I'm sure,"
Mrs. Weldon said, gratefully, " to put yourself to any
trouble on our account, but I do feel dreadfully worried
about my Sophie."

" Pray don't mention it," said Arthur, feeling very
hypocritical. " I shall look in without fail, Mrs. Weldon,
on my way home this evening."

Mr. Sutherland rode to the house of a friend, who
insisted, as Arthur knew he would, on his remaining to
dinner. It was not a very easy task to get away almost
immediately after the ceremony ; but pleading a pressing
engagement, he made his escape, and set off at a quick
canter back to St. Mary's.

The August sunset was ablaze in the skies, and the
atmosphere was like amber mist, as he dismounted before
the hotel. Standing in this amber mist, as a glorified
saint in a painted window, Mr. Benoir smoked his after-
tea cigar, and watched the few passers-by up and down
the quiet country street. Darkly splendid, with the
well-bred nonchalance of a prince of the blood royal, the
ex-Troubadour stood and looked at Mr. Sutherland, as he
alighted and stood before him. Mr. Sutherland met his
glance, recognised him in a moment, and coolly addressed
him at once.

" Mr. Benoir, I believe ? "
At Monsieur's service," replied Mr. Benoir, removing
his cigar, and bowing politely.

Mr. Sutherland presented his card. Mr. Benoir bowed
again.

" My gardener tells me, Mr. Benoir, you requested per-
mission some time ago to visit Maplewood. Permit me to
say my place is open to you whenever it shall please you
to go there/'

BROUGHT TO A RECKONING.

199

"Did be dismount, I wonder, to tell me this/' thought
Mr. Benoir ; but aloud he said : " A thousand thanks, Mr.
Sutherland. You who are so fortunate as to dwell in
Paradise, can afford poor fellows out in the cold, like my-
self, a few hours' bliss in your Eden. I have travelled a
good deal over this big world, and I have rarely seen a
more cheering spot than this New England home of yours."

He raised his half-smoked cigar as he spoke, and knocked
off the ashes with the little finger of his left hand. On
that finger a diamond ring blazed — a ring there was no
mistaking — the gift he had last given his wife.

Arthur Sutherland felt himself suddenly turning cold
and white. A horrible feeling — a creeping, shuddering
dread, vague and unshapely as the flickering shadows the
trees cast on the ground — benumbed every sense for a
moment. His wife's ring worn by this man ! He could
not get beyond that. All the sophistries of losing and find-
ing vanished into thin air — the fact alone remained and
stunned him.

" Monsieur does not look well," said M r. Benoir, " I hope
no sudden illness — "

He did not finish the sentence. Arthur Sutherland had
looked up, and their eyes met. The two men stook staring
at each other for fully a minute, and all social hypocrisies
dropped, as we drop a mask. The insolent smile on the
face of one — the pale, stern inquiry on the face of the
other — spoke as plainly as words.

The left hand of Mr. Benoir toyed carelessly with his
watch-chain, and the last red rays of the sunset flamed
back from the gem on his finger. He made no attempt to
hide it, and its flashing radiance seemed to blind the gazer.
Arthur's eyes fell upon it once more, as if even yet he could
not believe the evidence of his senses.

" Monsieur regards my ring," said Mr. Benoir compla-
cently ; " I trust he admires it. It is the recent gift of a
very dear friend, and worth a duke's ransom, I believe ! "

Mr. Sutherland, feeling how ghastly pale he must be,

200

A wife's tkagedy.

turned away from that triumphant face, whose exultation
was unconcealed, remounted his horse, and rode swiftly
away.

" Adieu, Monsieur !" a mocking voice called after him,
but he neither heard nor answered. He never stopped to
think how strange his conduct must seem — they under-
stood each other, and both knew it.

The rosy twilight had faded, and the glorious August
moon flooded field and forest with her pale radiance. The
tall trees cast ghostly shadows over the white, dusty, de-
serted road, the night air was sweet with the forest-odours,
and the frogs held concerts in the slimy pools all along the
wayside. The still beauty of the night recalled the memory
of that other night, long, long ago, when he and Philip
Sutherland had driven along here in the moonlight to see
Eulalie Rohan for the first time. Would it have been
better if they had never known that night — never known
the dark beauty which had bewitched them both ? He
had never asked himself that question before, and his heart
rebelled against it now. No, no ; better to have known
and loved her, better to have trusted and taken her to his
heart, and been happier, it seemed to him, than man ever
was before, than to have gone on, calmly content, with
some other woman, about whom no secrecy or mystery
ever hung — Isabel Vansell, for instance.

It was very rarely he thought of his old love now. He
was so supremely blessed in his beautiful wifti and child,
that he had no room in his heart even for the memory of
the girl he had once loved. But she arose before him to-
night in the misty moonlight, like a pale, reproachful
ghost; and the old remorse he had been wont to feel came
back like a pang.

As Maplewood drew near, Mr. Sutherland paused in
the furious gallop he had kept up unconsciously ever
since leaving the village. He had thought of the recent
interview in a stunned, lost kind of way, one phrase ring-
ing and ringing in his ears, even while he seemed to be

BROUGHT TO A RECKONING.

201

thinking of other things, as if it were a dismal accompani-
ment. " The recent gift of a very dear friend." " Of a very
dear friend !" Who did the insolent stranger mean by that,
when speaking of his wife's ring ? " Late of Cuba ! " —
had Eulalie, or Eulalie's grandfather, ever known him in
Cuba ? " Born in Louisiana ! " Could his wife have
known him there ? He tortured himself with questions
he could not answer, as we all do, and alighted, and
entered the house as miserably irresolute as his worst
enemy could wish.

Lucy looked out of the dining-rocm as he passed, with
an inquiring face.

" We thought you were lost, Arthur ? Have you dined ?"

" Yes, thank you ! I hope you have not waited ? I
dined with Squire Hazlett."

" We have waited," said Miss Sutherland ; " but that is
of no consequence. If you are going up-stairs, Arthur,
please ask Eulalie if she is ready for dinner ? "

" Where is Eulalie ? "

" In her room, I think. She has not been down tliis
afternoon."

Mr. Sutherland ran up-stairs, and knocked at Eulalie's
door.

" Come in," the sweet, familiar voice called ; and Ar-
thur entered.

The pretty room, so tastefully furnished, was lit only
by the moonlight. The curtains of silk and lace were
drawn back, and the silvery radiance poured in, and lay
in great squares of brilliance on the carpet. On a lounge
under one of the windows, with the white lace curtains
falling over her like a misty cloud, lay his wife, in her
elegant dinner-dress. She started up with a little cry at
sight of him.

" Oh, Arthur ! Is it you ? I thought it was Lucy !
How long you have been away ! "

He sat down beside her in silence. The light faded
out of the lovely face, and the pale terror came back as

«

202

A wife's tkagedy.

she saw how grave he was ; came back all in a moment,
mingled with eager, wild inquiry.

Arthur saw the change, and his heart smote him — she
looked so like a child who dreads punishment, and mutely
appeals for pity.

My poor, pale darling," he said, drawing her to him,
" my frightened little girl ! Why do you wear that ter-
rified face of late ? Surely you are not afraid of me ? "

" No, Arthur," very faintly.

" Then, my dearest, why do you refuse to tell me what
has changed you so within the last few weeks ? What is
it, Eulalie ? for you are changed."

She dropped her face on his shoulder, all her long, loose
ringlets falling over him like a silken cloud.

" Nothing, Arthur."

" Do people change for nothing, Eulalie ? Is it that
you love me less ? "

" Love you less ! Oh, Arthur ! Arthur 1 "
He stooped and kissed her.

" I am answered, my darling ! Is it that you are ill ? "
" No," she said, faintly ; " I am perfectly well."
" Then you will not tell me ? "

Dead silence. Her face lay hidden on his shoulder, her
hands pressed hard together in her lap. He lifted one of
the little hands and looked at it.

" You have not found your ring yet, my dear ? "

" No," she said, almost inaudibly.

" Do you know where you lost it ? "

Dead silence again.
Answer me, Eulalie. You know I prize this ring
very much as an heirloom in our family."

Still silent. Arthur's brow contracted.

" Will you not answer me, Eulalie ? "

" Arthur ! Arthur ! " she cried out, in a sort of des-
peration ; " don't ask me ! don't ! I cannot tell you ! I
have lost it, and I can tell you no more ! "

" Then I em, Eulalie. I have found it ! "

BROUGHT TO A RECKONING.

203

She stared as if he had stabbed her.

" I saw it to-day on the hand of a man I never saw be-
fore. My love, how came Gaston Benoir by your ring ? "

She gave a low cry of despair. All was over then, and
the worst had to come.

" My own dear wife/' he said, folding her closer in his
arms, and pale to the lips, with a dread of — he hardly
knew what, " I love and trust you with my whole heart ;
but you must tell me, Eulalie, how this man came by your
ring."

She lifted her head and looked at him as some poor
lamb might look at the slaughterer with the knife at its
throat.

" Did he find it, Eulalie ? "
" No."

" Did you give it to him ? " he asked, that nameless hor-
ror white in his face.
" Yes, Arthur."

A blank pause of consternation. Her head dropped
again.

" Oh, Arthur ! I could not help it ! indeed I could not !
I am afraid of that man, and I dared not refuse ! "

" Afraid of him, Eulalie ! What power has he over you ? "

" I cannot tell you."

" Eulalie, this is very strange! "

She said nothing. She only clung to him mutely, in
the old childish way.

"Eulalie!" he said passionately, "You are driving me
mad ! I must have an explanation. What power has
this man over you ? "

To his unspeakable terror, she rose up, and fell down
on her knees before him in the moonlight.

" Arthur! " she said, holding up her clasped hands, "for
God's sake, spare me. Oh ! I think that I am the most
wretched creature that ever was born ; but I cannot, I
cannot tell you the secret of this man's power. If you
qast me off, if I die alone, and niiserable, and broken-^

204

A wife's tkagedy.

hearted, I will have no cause to complain ; but I can
never tell you. If you cannot trust me any longer, Ar-
thur, or love me, knowing what you know, let us part
now. Let me go and leave you to-night ! "

Leave me, my precious darling ! " Arthur Sutherland
cried, raising her from the ground and straining her with
passionate love to his heart. " It is simply madness to
think of such a thing. No, my love, nothing but death
shall ever part us, in spite of all the secrets in the world."

She clung to his neck, in a joy too intense for words.

" You can tell me this, at least, my love. Is this the
secret that kept us apart before our marriage ? "

" Yes, Arthur."

" Your grandfather knew it ? "
" Poor, poor grandpapa — yes."

" Then I am content. Tell me more, Eulalie. Did you
know this man in Cuba ? "
" No."

" In Louisiana, then ? "

" No, no ; I never saw him in my life, until — "
" Until when, my dearest ? "
" Until the night of the concert."

Arthur Sutherland di:ew a long breath of unspeakable
relief.

And yet you recognised him that night. How was
that, Eulalie ? "

" I recognised his name in the playbill."

And fainted?"
" Yes, Arthur."

There was silence. Mr. Sutherland, sorely puzzled, but
quite relieved of that horror that had fallen upon him
like a nightmare, put away the silky curls from the
beautiful face of his wife.

" My silly darling, to think that anything in this world
could ever part us — to think I could ever live without
you ! Never speak of such a thing again ! No one in
this world shall ever come between my wife and me 1 "

BROUGHT TO A RECKONING.

205

She Iqpked up in his hopeful face with eyes unspeak-
ably tender and mournful.

" My poor Arthur ! My own dear husband ! Heaven
grant it ! But, whatever comes, you will always believe
that I loved you with all my heart, and you alone. You
will believe this, Arthur ? "

" Yes my dearest ! Do not look at me with such sor-
rowful eyes ; all will be well, in spite of ten thousand
secrets. We will talk no more of this now. Let us go
down-stairs ; Lucy is waiting dinner, and will be fam-
ished."

Still she clung to him ; still she looked up in his face,
with those solemn, sorrowful eyes.

" And you can trust me, Arthur, in spite of all ? You
can love me and believe in me in spite of this secret ? "

He stooped, and tenderly kissed the wistful, earnest
face.

" As I believe in Heaven ! If I doubted you, my own
darling, I think I should go mad ! "

CHAPTER XIX.

AT THE SUMMER-HOUSE.

LUCY sat in the dining-room when they entered,
reading patiently, and ready to wait with that se-
rene face of hers until midnight if they chose, for dinner.
From that vigilant watch-tower of hers, which she had
mounted so long ago, she seemed to read what had passed;
but Arthur's face baffled her — it was so calm, so reassured,
so infinitely tender and loving and trustful when it
turned to his wife. It turned to that beloved wife very
often this evening, and his voice had a new tenderness,
an unusual gentleness, a deeper respect, than his pale
cousin had ever heard there before.

Eulalie was perfectly colourless — her face was like
snow ; but it was ever so of late ; and the dark beautiful
eyes had a pleading, mournful light, unspeakably touch-
ing in that sweet young face — such a sad, sad look of
hopeless sorrow, of despairing resignation, as one only
sees in the lovely, sorrowful face of some picture of the
Mater Dolorosa. A picture of that " Mother Most Sorrow-
ful " hung above Eulalie's bed ; and, perhaps, she had
caught that pitiful look from praying before it so much.
She was such a little, childish-looking creature withal,
with her youthful face, and her pale beauty, and her tiny
stature, that any heart but the heart of a jealous woman
might have been moved to pity and forgiveness.

But the cold, pale girl who sat at the other side of the
table, and ate slowly and thoughtfully, neither pitied nor
forgave,

AT THE SUMMER-HOUSE.

207

She could surmise very little of the events of the day,
except that the circumstance of the ring had been ex-
plained away, and that Arthur's first fleeting doubts of
the wife he loved had been set at rest.

" He is such a fool about that black-haired doll,"
thought Miss Sutherland, "that he would believe the
moon was made of green cheese if she told him so. I
wonder if he saw Gaston Benoir ? I wonder if he saw
the ring ? Will he speak to me on the subject to-night ? "

" Eulalie," Arthur said, " I want you to sing for me
this evening, my darling. I used to think I had caged a
singing-bird, but we have had no music at all of late."

He led her to the piano, and she fluttered the sheets of
music restlessly.

" What shall I sing for you, Arthur ? "

" Anything you please. Some of the old Spanish
ballads I used to like so much."

The little hands wandered aimlessly over the keys, and
struck at last into a low, melancholy symphojiy, along
which her sweet voice ran faintly, and sadly, and sweetly,
as ijie sighing of the summer night wind. The old, sad
songs of fallen Spain, her grandfather had loved best of
all, followed one after the other, until the mournful music
made the listener's heart ache. There was something
sadder than tears in the face, looking out from that cloud
of feathery black curls, something more touching than
womanly weeping in the sad patience of the childish little
singer. She sang so softly that her music seemed the
echo of the sea wind, rising and falling in fitful gusts.

"Your music is very melancholy, my little wife/
Arthur said, as her hands dropped listlessly off* the keys.
" But it brings back the pleasant old times to hear those
songs again."

" Old times," Eulalie repeated, very sadly. I am
afraid it would have been better, my dearest, if those old
times had never been."

She sat very still and silent all the rest of the evening.

208

A wife's tragedy.

\

Hortense, the Swiss bonne, brought in baby Eulalie ; and
the young mother sat in a low^ nurse-chair, with the baby
in her arms, hushing it softly to sleep. Arthur challenged
his cousin to a game of chess ; but ever and anon his eyes
wandered from his kings and queens, and castles and
bishops, to the pretty picture the baby- wife made, hush-
ing that other baby to sleep.

" Check ! " Lucy cried, sharply, and Arthur awoke from
his dreaming to find he had lost the game.

" What a player you are growing to be. Miss Lucy ! "
he said, sweeping them all up in a heap. " A Sutherland
dies before he yields ! Once more. ' Come on, Macdufi ! ' "

This time Mr. Sutherland watched the game, and won
it. Lucy had done her best, and bit her lip with mortifi-
cation as he arose, laughing.

" I am a match for you yet in a free fight, my fair
cousin. I told you a Sutherland never yields. Why,
where is Eulalie ? "

" Mrs. Sutherland left the room some time ago," said
Lucy. " I dare say you will find her in the nursery."

Mr. Sutherland, however, did not follow his wi% to
the nursery. He drew back the curtains from the closed
window, threw open the shutters, and sat down in the
recess, looking out over the wide moonlit sea. Lucy
lingered, hoping he would speak of the ring; but he
seemed even unaware of her presence, until her voice
startled him.

" Good-night, Arthur."

" Good-night Lucy," he said kindly, waking up from
his reverie for an instant, and falling back again when she
had left the room.

Truth to tell Arthur Sutherland was not more than
half satisfied, though he seemed wholly so to Lucy. He
could not forget the handsome, insolent face of Mr. Gaston
Benoir ; he could not forget the steady, derisive stare of
his bold black eyes, or the marked meaning of his tone
when he spoke of the ring. He could not forget the hu-

AT THE SUMMER-HOtTSfi.

209

miliating fact that his wife had given the man this ring
— his gift. This unknown wandering vagrant was in the
confidence of his wife, from which he was excluded. She
was in the power of this insolent Southerner — his beau*
tiful, precious darling — and gave him no right to defend
her from him ; to stand between her and his insolence.
The proud Sutherland blood boiled within him, and his
strong hand clenched, and his eyes flashed at the thought.
He believed in the beautiful creature he had won for his
wife ; he believed in her purity and truth as he believed
in his own soul; but this galling secret kept from him
was none the less humiliating for that. He believed im-
plicitly that she had never set eyes on Gaston Benoir be-
fore the night of the concert. If there were guilt in the
secret, the guilt was none of hers — his little, gentle darling,
half child, half woman. He remembered her grand-
father's strange conduct — the secret of his life and his
life's trouble — kept from her so long as he dared keep it.
The secret of Gaston Benoir's power involved the honour
of her dead grandfather, not hers ; and she had promised
that grandfather never to reveal it. There was nothing
for him — loving her with that true-hearted, unselfish love
— but to respect that promise, and endure his mortifica-
tion.

He sat there thinking of this, and staring blankly out
at the glorious moonlit ocean and the star-gemmed sky,
so long that it was past midnight when he went up-stairs.
His wife had fallen asleep when he entered their chamber,
and he stood looking at her, with only tender pity in his
eyes. She looked so young, so innocently beautiful in
her slumber, with her wan face shaded, and made paler
by her purple black hair all loose over the pillow, that he
forgot everything but his deep love and trust in her.

" My poor little girl — my innocent, unhappy darling ! "
he murmured. " Thank God that she can sleep like this ! "

Mr. Sutherland descended next morning to breakfast
alone. Lucy, waiting as usual, looked up inquiringly,

210

A Wife's tragedy.

" Eiilalie will not come down this morning," lie said
" She complains of headache. After breakfast, you will
send her up some tea and toast."

Throughout the meal, Lucy sat expectant, waiting for
some allusion to be made to the lost ring, but Mr. Suther-
land made none. He had an unsocial habit of reading
during breakfast, and perused his letters and papers, and
sipped his coffee, and said very little. When the meal
was over, he sat down with a book, and was deep in its
pages, when a sudden exclamation from his cousin made
him look up. She was standing, gazing eagerly out of
the front window commanding a view of the grounds.

" Well ? " said Arthur, inquiringly.

" There is the man," exclaimed Lucy, of whom we
were speaking yesterday — that strange Southerner, Mr.
Benoir."

Arthur's face flushed. He rose, looking in the direc-
tion his cousin pointed, and saw the handsome tenor cross-
ing the lawn, with his eternal cigar in his mouth.

" Yes, yes," he said trying to speak carelessly. " I saw
the man yesterday, and told him to come as often as he
pleased. I hardly expected so early a visit, though."

He sat down again to his book, but all its interest was
gone. Mr. Benoir's bold black eyes and derisive smile
mocked him from every printed page. The sight of the
man disturbed him as nothing else could have done, and
he suddenly threw the book down and went up to his
wife's room. She was kneeling in her white muslin morn-
ing-dress before the pictured Mater Dolorosa, her sweet
face uplifted, her eainest eyes upraised. Arthur waited
until she arose, looking out of the window at the sun-
shine lying bright in the green fields.

" Eulalie, my darling," he said, turning round hastily,
" do you know who is here ? "

"ISo, Arthur."

" The man you fear so much — the man who has your
ring ! "

AT TUB: SUMMER-fiOtrSE!.

211

" She began to tremble suddenly ; the blank, terrified
stare dilating in her dark eyes.

" Eulalie, do you know what brings him here ? "

Her lips formed " No," but in the first shock of her
husband's words she had no voice to speak.

" My love," Arthur said, coming over and encircling the
slender waist with his arm, " why should you dread this
man so much, when I am here to protect you ? Come,
Eulalie, show yourself a brave little woman. Give me
leave to go and take your ring from this fellow, and kick
him out of the grounds."

She gave a cr}^ of terror, as she clasped his arm tight,
and looked up in his face with her wild eyes.

" No, no, no ! Not for ten thousand worlds ! Oh,
Arthur, Arthur, I am utterly, and entirely, and beyond
all earthly hope, in the power of this man. Arthur,
Arthur ! if you love me, avoid him, don't speak to him,
don't offend him, don't turn him out of the grounds, or
ask him for my ring I "

" Eulalie ! "

" Oh, I cannot tell you, Arthur ! — I dare not tell you !
and yet you may know it some day. Oh, I wish — I wish
I had never been born ! "

She wrung her pale hands, and fell down on the sofa
in a fit of hysterical weeping. In all things, in this pas-
sionate crying, she was more of a child than a woman ;
and she wept passionately, vehemently, as a child might
weep, now.

" My love ! my love ! " Arthur said, dismayed, " do not
grieve like this ! Eulalie, dearest, be calm. I will do all
you ask. I shall not interfere between you and this man."

It was long before the hysterical sobbing ceased, and
left the fragile little creature quite exhausted. She
dropped among the silken cushions, her poor head aching
almost beyond endurance.

" I will leave you for awhile, darling," Arthur said,
kissing the pallid, tear-stained face. " Try and sleep.
You have cried until you are quite worn out."

212

A wife's tragedy.

He drew the curtains to darken the room and went
down-stairs, and out. As he crossed the velvet lawn, Mr.
Benoir came sauntering out of the woodland path leading
to the old summer-house, still smoking, and lifted his hat
in polite recognition.

" Good morning, Mr. Sutherland," said bland Mr. Benoir;
" I hope I have not availed myself of your kind permis-
sion too early in the morning. Rising betimes is an old
habit of mine, and the beauty of the day tempted me this
far."

A stiff bow was Mr. Sutherland's only reply, as he
passed on. Mr. Benoir looked after him with that pecu-
liar smile of his back again.

"Humph ! " he thought; " so that is your little game,
Mr. Sutherland, is it ? I expected to have been collared
this morning, and this pretty ring of mine, or an explan-
ation, demanded. But I see we are prudent. Our pretty
little wife is opposed to violent measures, and we love
her too much to offend her. Just as you please, Mr.
Sutherland ; it will all come to the same thing in the
end. I wonder if that wildcat, Rebecca, is on the look-
out ? "

If Rebecca was on the lookout she did not appear ; for
Miss Sutherland was on the lookout, also. Mr. Benoir
loitered about for some time. He wanted to see the
housemaid, to discover any particulars about Eulalie she
might know ; but Rebecca did not come. He waited
until nearly noon, smoking no end of cigars, and talking
to his friend the gardener, and was forced at last to leave
without seeing her.

Eulalie's headache was very obdurate, and confined
her to her room all day. She lay in her darkened cham-
ber, with her throbbing temples pressed between her
hands, thinking distractedly how she was to keep her
appointment that night. She dared not stay away, yet
how should she go without her husband's knowledge. In
his loving anxiety about her, he was in the room every

AT THE SUMMER-HOUSE.

213

hour, inquiring if she felt better, if he could do anything
for her, and always hearing that sad, weary answer, " Oh,
no ! " Chance, however, or Mr. Benoir's lucky star, fav-
oured her. During the afternoon, a message arrived
from Colonel Madison, a very old friend of the family,
requesting him to ride over to his place at once, if con-
venient, and help him to settle a little matter of business.

" As you are so unwell, my love," Mr. Sutherland said,
reading the colonel's note aloud to his wife, " I will write,
and ask him to postpone it until to-morrow. If I go, it
will probably be late before I return."

" Don't postpone it ! " exclaimed his wife, eagerly,
" don't disappoint the colonel because of my headache ; I
will be better left quite alone."

Arthur hesitated a little ; but Eulalie pressed him to
comply, with very unwonted energy.

"Do go, Arthur ! You know how odd the old colonel
is, and how he cannot bear the slightest disappointment.
Don't mind my headache, dear, it will wear itself away
after a while."

Thus urged, Mr. Sutherland dressed and rode away.
Lucy came out into the lower hall, as he stood in the
doorway, drawing on his gloves.

" I would rather postpone it," he said, " on account of
Eulalie's indisposition ; but Eulalie herself presses me to
go. I will not return for dinner."

Lucy smiled. She understood why Eulalie pressed him
to go away, very well.

" I am glad the coast is clear," she thought. " Now,
my lady, nothing remains but to watch you."

Miss Sutherland took her work up-stairs, and took her
post in a room opposite Eulalie's, across the hall. She
left the door ajar, so that the slightest sound in the hall
could not fail to be overheard ; but the long afternoon
wore on, and no sound came from the closed chamber of
her cousin's wife. Twilight fell, gray and ghostly, and
still no sign of life within that silent room. As it grew

N

214

A wife's tragedy.

too dark to work, Miss Sutherland arose, crossed the hall,
aDd tapped at the door she had watched. It was opened
at once, and by Eulalie. She had evidently been up
some time ; for her loose morning neglige was exchanged
for a dark dress of soft, unrustling texture, and a long
black mantle with a hood was thrown over the back of a
chair. She was startingly pale, Lucy saw ; but that was
nothing out of the common now.

" I did not know you were up, Mrs. Sutherland," said
Lucy. " I hope you feel better ? "

" Yes," Eulalie said, softly.

" Will you have some tea and toast here, or will you
come down and have dinner ? "

" Thank you ! I will have the tea and toast, if you
please."

Miss Sutherland bowed and withdrew. And tea and
toast were duly dispatched. She dined in solitary state
herself, as she had been wont to do in the days when she
was the isolated recluse of Maplewood; and making a
very hasty meal of it, returned to her post upstairs.

The summer twilight, pale and blue as Lucy's own
eyes, faded out into night. A dark and overcast night,
threatening rain, a dull starless sky, an obscure moon, and
a fitful complaining wind stirring in the trees. Lucy
took no light — the hall-lamp afforded light sufficient for
her to sit and wait by, and count the passing hours.

Eight struck. Lucy waited and waited, with folded
hands, and the steady patience of a woman's hatred. Nine.
The closed door of Eulalie's room softly opened, and Eu-
lalie herself with the cloak thrown over her arm, came
out. In the light of the hall-lamp, Lucy could see how
wofully corpse-like she looked, as she glided down the
deserted corridor, down the staircase, and along the lower
hall. How was she to know of the implacable enemy fol-
lowing so stealthily, so surely on her trail ? She had
opened the front-door, and was out in the dark, sultry
night. She paused to throw the mantle around her shoul-

AT THE SUMMER-HOUSE.

215

ders, and draw the hood over her head, and to take a star-
tled look about on every side, and then she was gliding
on again, and her shadow was following her, surely and
silently to her doom !

Moonless and starless though it was, there was light
enough in the night to show the path without difficulty,
and Arthur Sutherland's wife and cousin went steadily
on. Once Eulalie had paused for a second on the grassy
terrace to glance at the black, moaning sea, and then had
struck into the woodland path leading to the summer-
house. She paused at the door, and tapped softly. Lucy
saw it open instantly, saw Eulalie enter, the door close,
and then she was alone with her beating heart, under the
black trees.

If she could only overhear ! Treading lightly on the
dewy grass that gave back no echo, she stole round to the
end of the summer-house, to crouch down with her ear
to the wall. She turned the corner of the little building,
with one hand outstretched to feel her way, for in the
shadow of the trees it was very dark. As she stooped,
the outstretched hand fell on something warm — a human
face ! At the same instant, her wrist was forcibly grasped,
and the cry of terror that arose to her lips, hushed by an
imperative voice.

" Hush, I tell you ! '"' her captor said, in a fierce whisper.
"Who are you ? "

" Lucy Sutherland," she faltered, in mortal dread.

There was a pause. Her eyes had grown more accus-
tomed to the darkness of the place, and she saw her cap-
tor was a woman crouching on the ground. The woman
arose and stood before her, and, dim as the light was,
Lucy recognised her — Rebecca the housemaid !

CHAPTER XX.

CONFIDENTIAL.

THE two women stood looking at each other in silence.
The light was too obscure to show the face of either
plainly, and each seemed waiting for the other to speak.
Rebecca still grasped Miss Sutherland's wrist, towering
up above her, in her tall stature, almost to the height of a
giantess Lucy was the first to recover^ — the first to
speak,

" Let go my wrist, Rebecca," she said, quietly : " you
are hurting me."

The girl loosened her grasp, and still stood silent.

" You have come here to — " Miss Sutherland paused.

" To listen ! " said Rebecca, finishing the sentence ; " as
you have done. Miss Sutherland."
How long have you been here 1 "

" Over half an hour."

"You know who are in the summer-house ?"

" Gaston Benoir and Mrs. Sutherland."

They spoke in whispers, standing very close together,
like two conspirators, with the ghastly trees rising dark
about them. In the pause that followed Rebecca's last
words, a low murmuring of voices within' the summer-
house was distinctly audible.

" Listen," said Rebecca ; " we understand each other.
If we want to overhear what is going on within, now is
our time."

She crouched down again with her ear close to the

CONFIDENTIAL. 217

wall, and Lucy followed her example. Some natural
repugnance she felt, some natural shame, not so much at
the eavesdropping, as at that eavesdropping being
known ; but curiosity was stronger than any other feel-
ing. Noiselessly the young lady and the housemaid
sank down in the dewy grass, and hushed their very
breathing to listen. The chirping of some wakeful bird
in its nest, the sighing of the restless trees in the night-
wind, the dull, monotonous rush of the waves on the
shore, sounded intolerably loud in the hush of the night.
Nothing but an indistinct murmur of voices could be
heard within — the words of the speakers were inaudible.
Sometimes the voice of Eulalie rose passionate, implor-
ing, vehement. Sometimes Mr. Benoir s loud, derisive
laugh rang softly out, but every effort to overhear the
conversation proved fruitless. Still the two spies
crouched in the grass, holding their breath, and straining
every faculty into the one sense of hearing.

At last the interview seemed terminating ; they could
hear Mr. Benoir walking about, and catch a few words,
as he drew close to their place of hiding.

" You cannot have the money then, you say, before
the expiration of a week. Well, the sum is large ; and
if I must wait, why, I must."

The sweet foreign-accented voice of the Creole lady
murmured softly in reply. They could not catch her
words. Presently, Mr. Benoir, walking up and down,
became audible again.

" If this night week suits your convenience, my pretty
Eulalie, then this night week let it be. I want the
money particularly, I can tell you. I expect to be mar-
ried shortly."

Rebecca, the housemaid, gave a start that nearly over-
set Lucy, but in an instant she was statuesque again.

" By-the-bye," said Mr. Benoir, becoming audible once
more, your husband admires my ring, I think, Eulalie
I took pains to let him see it, and I fancy he has spoken
to you about the striking resemblance it bears to one

218

A wife's tragedy.

you used to wear. Come, my dear, be confidential, and
tell us what he said,"

They could hear the distressed appealing voice that
replied, but not her answer. They could hear Mr. Benoir
laugh, but not his next words, and then the door opened
and they heard him plainly.

"This night week, then, at the same hour, you will find
me here. Good night, most beautiful Eulalie, and happy
dreams ! "

The two spies crouched yet further down, hushing their
very heart-beating, lest its loudness should betray them.
They could hear the soft rustle of Eulalie's dress against
the trunks of the trees, the louder sound of Mr. Benoir's
footsteps as he followed, whistling. When the last faint
sound died out, and nothing but the noises of the night
remained, they rose up.

" Come," said Lucy Sutherland, " let us go. You and I
must have a talk to-night before we sleep."

She glided noislessly along the path, and the tall Re-
becca follow^ed her, smiling under cover of the darkness
at having caught her so nicely. Suddenly, Lucy stopped
— the sound of a horse galloping rapidly along the road
struck on their ears.

" It is Mr. Sutherland," Lucy said, hurriedl}'. " I do
not wish him to see us. Let us go by the side-door."

Rebecca followed her into the house by one of the ser-
vant's entrances. No one met them, as they rapidly
crossed the hall and ascended the stairs.

" Come to my room," said Lucy, out of breath. " I want
to talk to you, Rebecca."

" Yes, Miss," said the undisturbed Rebecca ; and they
entered Miss Sutherland's chamber together, just as Mr.
Sutherland was heard coming along the entrance-hall.

Lucy's pretty room was unlighted, but her night-lamp
stood ready on the dressing-table. The window was still
open that sultry August night, and the pale lighter dark-
ness made the room luminous.

CONFIDENTIAL.

219

" Sit down, Rebecca," said Lucy, closing and locking the
door. " Do you mind sitting in the dark, or shall I light
the lamp ? "

"Just as you please, Miss Sutherland," said the black-
eyed housemaid, with infinite composure. " ft's all one
to me."

"Very well then — I prefer this light to talk by, Rebecca."

Rebecca had seated herself by the open window. Lucy
took an arm-chair near her, and touched her folded hands
as she pronounced her name.

" Yes, Miss Sutherland," composedly answered Rebecca.

" Will you tell me why you came to be at the summer-
house to-night ? "

" I have told you. I wanted to hear what Gaston Be-
noir had to say to Mrs. Sutherland."

" How came you to know they were there ? You were
at the summer-house before Mrs. Sutherland."

" Yes, I was waiting for her to come."

" How did you know she was coming ? "

The housemaid smiled under favour of the dusk at all
this cross-questioning.

" Miss Sutherland, you know as well as I do it is not
the first time she has been there with him."

Miss Sutherland paused, aghast, at the knowledge of
the housemaid.

"You know she has met him before ? Rebecca, how
did you discover it ? "

"As I discovered them to-night — by watching and
waitino-."

" Has it been since you came here ? " asked Lucy, breath-
lessly.
" No "

Lucy came near in her devouring curiosity, and caught
the girl's hand, and held it hard.

' Rebecca, you listened — what was it you overheard ? "
" Nothing ! "

" Nothing ? " — incredulously.

220

A wife's tragedy.

" No, Miss Sutherland, I heard nothing. I only saw."
" What did you see ? "

" Mrs. Sutherland enter the summer-house where Gas-
ton Benoir was in waiting, remain there about fifteen
minutes, lind depart again."

" And how did you happen to be in hiding that night ? "

Again Rebecca smiled.

" I followed Gaston Benoir from the village. I knew
nothing of Mrs. Sutherland. I only w^anted to see where
he was going that time of night."

" You know Gaston Benoir, then ? "

"Yes, Miss Sutherland."

" Rebecca, I am very curious about that man. Will
you not tell me who and what he is ? I will make it
worth your while if you do."

" I have nothing to tell, Miss Sutherland," said the
housemaid, quietly. " Gaston Benoir is Gaston Benoir,
and that is almost all I know of his history."

In the darkness of the room, Rebecca could not see how
the listener's face darkened with anger and disappoint-
ment. But the low, eager voice was unchanged when
she spoke.

" Almost all ! Will you not tell me all ? It is for Mr.
Sutherland's sake I ask — Mr. Sutherland, Rebecca, who
knows nothing of those stolen meetings."

" I am quite aware of that. But Mr. Sutherland h^s
no cause to be jealous." /

"Rebecca!" I

" No, Miss. Gaston Benoir and Mrs. Sutherland ha\^e
very little love for one another — very little, indeed."

" How do you know that ? "

"Gaston Benoir told me, for one thing; and I have
eyes, and can see for myself."
''What?"

" That Mrs. Sutherland loves her husband, and would
die a thousand deaths sooner than dishonour him."

" Does she not dishonour him by meeting this man at
all ? " said Lucy, in a fierce whisper.

CONFIDENTIAL. 221

Perhaps she cannot help herself. Perhaps she is too
much afraid of Gaston Benoir to refuse."
" Did he tell you that, too ? "
"Yes."

" Rebecca, how long have you known this man ? "

" About two years."

" Where did you know him ? "

" In New Orleans."

" What was he then ? "

" A sailor," said Rebecca ; "just arrived from South
America."

" A sailor ! What more do you know of him ? Is he
a native of South America ? "

" Oh, no ; he was born in Louisiana."

" Well ? " said Miss Sutherland, impatiently.

" Well," repeated the very calm Rebecca ; " that is all
I know."

"I don't believe you," the young lady's angry face
said ; but she restrained herself, and spoke calmly.

" And Mr. Benoir is a very handsome young man, and
a lover of yours, of course ? "

The dark face of the housemaid flashed red in the
gloom.

" Yes, Miss Sutherland."

" Well, you tell me about it, Rebecca. Perhaps I can
tell you something in return that will interest you ! "
Rebecca looked surprised.

" There is not much to tell. I knew him in New Or-
leans, and we were going to be married ; but he "

She stopped, suddenly ; and Miss Sutherland, still hold-
ing her hand, still leaning forward to see her face in the
darkness, finished the sentence.

" Deserted you ! And you followed him here ! There,
there ; I see it all — I thought from the first you were no
ordinary housemaid. T thought, under all that self-sup-
pressed manner, some strong motive lay hidden. Rebecca,
people like you, with such eyes in their heads as you

2^2

A WIFE*S TRAaEDY.

have got, do not ordinarily forgive such slights Very
readily. Have you forgiven your recreant lover ? "

" Yes, Miss Sutherland."

" You have ? And why ? "

" Because I love him ! "

Some of the inward fire, so well suppressed, broke out
in the girl's face and voice as she spoke ; and Lucy, in the
dim light, saw it.

" Ah ! and what did he say when he saw you here ! Does
he love you still ? "

" Yes."

" Why, then, did he leave you ? "

Eebecca flushed again. Mr.Benoir's explanation sounded
very lame and humiliating re-told.

" Because — because — Miss Sutherland," said Rebecca,
desperately, " I decline answering that question ! "

" As you please. But he told you he still loved you ? "

" He did."

" And would marry you ? "

" Yes," said the housemaid, impatiently, growing tired
of this searching catechism.
"When?"

" When he has money enough to keep a wife as she
should be kept."

" But he seems to have plenty of money now. He dresses
as only a rich man can afiford to dress, his pockets are al-
ways full, and he wears a diamond ring. Why does he not
marry you now ?"

Rebecca's answer was an impatient gesture. She had no
faith in the man she loved, though she tried with all the
strength of her woman's heart to believe him. She had
trusted him implicitly once, and had been deceived ; and
with that betrayed trust had died her faith in mankind
forever. But she loved him still — how entirely, how devot-
edly, how insanely, none but herself knew — and her faith
in him was only hoping against hope.

" He could marry you now if he chose. He has plenty

CONFIDENTIAL.

223

of money, wherever it comes from. Why does he not do
it?"

" Miss Sutherland !" cried Rebecca, with sudden fierce-
ness ; " let me alone ! I am not a good woman at my best,
but you seem to raise the very demon within me. Why
he does not marry me is my affair, not yours. Let me go
to my room."

She rose up, but Lucy's thin hand closed on her wrist
like a spring.

" Not yet !" she said ; " not yet. One good turn deserves
another. You have told me what you know, now wait and
listen to what I know ! "

Rebecca sat down again, her hands folded in her lap,
her black brows contracting ominously, her thin lips
compressed, her eyes fixed on the young lady's face.

"You will not tell me why Gaston Benoir does not marrv
you. Shall I tell you ?"

" If you can ! "

" 1 can, very easily : It is simply because he is going
to marry some one else ! "
" Miss Sutherland ! "

"I am telling you the truth. I know positively he
would have been married before this, if the girl's mother
would have given her consent."

The dark housemaid sat stunned. In the dim light,
Lucy could see the fixed stare of blank consternation
in her dilating eyes.

" He loves this girl, I am sure, and he does not love
you. He is a liar and a villain, and he has deceived you,
my poor Rebecca, as cruelly as ever woman was deceived
by man."

Rebecca neither moved nor spoke. Her whole face and
form seemed to settle into an awful rigidity, her unwink-
ing eyes still staring blankly at the speaker. Lucy was
almost frightened.

" Rebecca," she said, shaking her slightly : " do you
hear me ? are you turning to stone ? Speak to me,
Rebecca. Have you heard what I said."

224

A wife's tragedy.

" Yes."

The monosyllalble dropt from her lips like an icicle, but
her glittering black eyes never left the speaker's face.
" Do you believe me ? "
" Yes."

" Do you not want to know the girl's name — the name
of your fortunate rival ? "
" Yes."

Her frozen manner relaxed as she said it, and a sud-
den fury leaped into her tigerish black eyes.

" Yes," she repeated, under her breath, half hissing the
words ; " yes : what is her name ? "

" Sophie Weldon ! The prettiest girl in St. Mary's,
Rebecca, and she adores him. You know whom I mean,
pretty Sophia Weldon, whose mother keeps the hotel."

" Yes, yes, yes ! " Rebecca cried, with devouring eager-
ness. " I know ; I have seen her ! A pretty wax doll,
with pink cheeks and blue eyes and yellow curls ! Oh, I
might have known ! I might have known ! "

She shook off Miss Sutherland's grasp, and rose up, her
tall stature looking gigantic in the gloom.

" Have you anything more to tell me. Miss Suther-
land?"

" Not much," said Lucy, also rising. " You can easily
prove the truth of my story by going to St. Mary's and
inquiring."

" Oh, I don't doubt it. It is very like Gaston Benoir.
I am not surprised at him. I am only surprised at my-
self, that I could have been such a blind fool ! "

" And Rebecca," said Lucy, uneasily, " all this is to re-
main a dead secret between ourselves. You understand ?"

I understand perfectly. Miss Sutherland, and am much
obliged to you ! Permit me to bid you good-night."

" Good-night, Rebecca," Lucy said ; and the tall, dark
figure flitted away, shadow-like, into the deeper darkness
of the attic stairs.

CHAPTER XXI.

MR. BENOIR'S dilemma.

THE day after the evening in the summer-house, Mr.
Gaston Benoir sat in his own private apartment in
the Weldon House, enjoying solitude and a choice cigar.
Smoking came as natural and was almost as necessary as
breathing to the ex-Troubadour, and now, in an easy-
chair by the window, his legs elevated on another, Mr.
Benoir, in after-dinner mood, smoked and mused.

It was late in the afternoon, cold and rainy, with a
raw wind blowing fresh from the sea. The sky was of
lead, the slanting rain beat ceaselessly on the glass, and
the sea-gale rattled the shutters and shook the windows
at the Weldon House.

But Mr. Benoir, gazing reflectively at the stormy day,
felt very comfortable. His room was such a pleasant one,
his cigar super-extra, his dinner digesting easily — what
more is needed to make man happy ? Down-stairs a
pretty girl was dying for him — a girl young and fresh
and innocent, and whom he loved. Yes, Mr. Benoir loved
pretty Sophie as he had never loved some scores of others
off and on ; and which lovings had never come to any-
thing. But this time the fickle Troubadour was serious.

" I'm getting old," thought Mr. Benoir, looking contem-
platively out at two or three young ladies picking their
steps through the muddy street. " When a young man
gets on the wrong side of thirty as many years as I have.

226

A wife's tragedy.

he cannot call himself young any longer. I'm about tired
of knocking around this big world, a football for fate to
kick at, and I feel as though I should like to settle down
for good. Now," Mr. Benoir pursued mentally, lighting
another cigar, " the first great step towards settling down
is to get married. I never had much of an opinion of
matrimony until these last few weeks ; but my pretty
little Sophie is an angel, or next door to one. It's some-
thing to be loved, too, as she loves me. Not but what I've
had a surfeit of it in m}^ time. There's that confounded
Rebecca, and be hanged to her."

Mr. Benoir smoked with vindictive energy, scowling at
the rain, as the image of Lucy Sutherland's tall housemaid
rose before him.

" I thought I was done with her," went on Mr. Benoir,
continuing his train of thought, " when I jilted her in New
Orleans. She's one of your high-stepping sort, and I
thought her too proud ever to give me another thought.
But le grand diahle himself could not understand these
women ! Here she hunts me down ; and when I have
almost ceased to remember her, turns up at the very worst
time for me, ripe and ready for no end of mischief. I am
only surprised that I quieted her so easily that night,
when she rose up before me like a black ghost. I shouldn't
have expected it."

Mr. Benoir smoked for awhile, musing on this point ;
and having surmounted it, went on.

" Now, I might concoct a story for the prudish old
dame down-stairs, that would satisfactorily account for
my sudden wealth, and get her consent and blessing, and
so on ; but what's the use of that,^with this tiger-cat in
my way ? No, there is too much of the devil in the girl
to be braved. If that unfortunate little beauty, Eulalie,
had a tithe of her spirit, I would have a hard fight for the
victory. No, I cannot defy Rebecca. Sophie and 1 must
make a moonlight flitting of it — Young Lochinvar — that
style of thing, rather ! "

ME. BENOIR's dilemma.

227

While Mr. Benoir sat absorbed in these matrimonial
reflections, blue-eyed Sophie, down-stairs in the parlour,
sat alone, with a cloud on her fair face. Perhaps it was
the gloom of the gloomy day ; perhaps she found her own
thoughts bad company ; or perhaps it was that her hand-
some Gaston had left her alone since morning. She sat
embroidering that gossamer bridal-handkerchief that Lucy
Sutherland had admired, frowning at the rosebuds and
for-get-me-nots all the while. Her sisters were at the
kitchen-cabinet ; but golden-haired Sophie, the beauty
and pet, was also the lady of the family, and never soiled
her taper fingers with anything harder than needlework.

So this rainy afternoon she sat, looking disconsolately
out at the dark, forlorn day, in the intervals of her work,
thinking of her hard fate in having such an obdurate
mother, and wondering what Mr. Benoir might be about
up in his chamber. She was sitting with her back to the
door, gazing at the beating rain, and sloppy streets, when
a familiar step in the hall set her heart beating, and she
turned round as the door opened.

" Oh, it's you, is it ? " said Miss Weldon, slightingly.

" I thought it was Fanny."

" You would rather it was Fanny, wouldn't you, now ? "
said Mr. Benoir, coming forward and kissing the pretty,
pouting face in very offhand fashion, " You want me to
believe that, I suppose ? "

" It's of no consequence what you believe ! Have you
been asleep all day, pray ? "

" By no means. I am not in the habit of sleeping in
daytime."

" What have you been about, then ? "

" Thinking, my dear."

" Of what ? "
Of you."

" I don't believe it," said Miss Sophie, relenting, with a
smile, nevertheless. " You might have been down here
with me, if you hked."

228

A wife's tragedy.

" It is true though, Sophie. I want to talk to you,
seriously. Put down that sewing, and listen to me."

Sophie dropped her work, and looked up at him, with
wondering blue eyes. The uplifted face looked so fresh
and blooming, and rosy and innocent, that Mr. Benoir
was tempted to kiss it again, by way of preface. Accord-
ingly he did so.

" Is that what you call talking seriously," said Sophie,
blushing, and hitching the seat further back. " Behave
yourself ? "

" Sophie," said Mr. Benoir, gravely, " you don't know
how much I love you ! "

" Don't I ? " said Miss Weldon. " My memory must be
very bad then, for you have told me so several times, if
not oftener."

" Sophie," continued the Troubadour, waving down the
interruption, " I am going to get married ! "
" To — " Sophie paused, alarmed.

"To you, my pretty blue- eyes, if you will marry me;
to some one else, if you won't. But I am going to be
married before the new moon wanes."

" Dear me ! " said Sophie, pouting again. " What's your
hurry ? Is that what you have been meditating on all day ? "

"Yes."

Sophie shrugged her pretty shoulders, disdainfully, but
Mr. Benoir's face showed he was quite in earnest. He
took both her hands in his, and leaned forward.

" My pretty Sophie, will you be my wife ? "

"Oh, Gaston!"

" Will you be my wife, Sophie ? "
Gaston, you know mother will not consent."

" Let her refuse, then. I am not asking mother, but
you. What do you say ? "

" You know — you know I am willing enough," faltered
Sophie, " but how can I when mother — "

" Oh, confound your mother! I beg, your pardon, my
dear Sophie, but really I lose patience when I think of

MR. BENOIR's dilemma.

229

that absurd old woman. What, under Heaven, does she
want ; surely a son-in-law young, rich, and handsome,
ought to satisfy her, and I flatter myself I am all these ! "

" You know very well what she wants," said Sophie, a
little nettled at his disrespect. " She wants to know
where your riches come from — and so do I ! "

Mr. Benoir laughed good-naturedly, and chucked
Sophie's dimpled chin.

" I dare say you do, my little daughter of mother Eve.
Well, when we are a year and a day married, I shall
tell you. Oh, don't pull your hands away, and don't look
so deeply displeased. Dear little hand," said Mr. Benoir,
kissing the left one, " how well a wedding-ring would be-
come it 1 "

Sophie was not proof against this, and hid a very rose
ate face on Mr. Benoir's coat-collar.

" Oh, Gaston ! what is the use of talking ? You know
I can't get married 1 "

" Why not, my darling ? "

" Because mother — "

" There ! " cried Mr. Benoir, imperiously, " I won't have
it ! Let mother go to the— antipodes, if she likes. You
can marry me, if you love me, in spite of fifty cantanker-
ous old mothers."

" Gaston Benoir, stop calling my mother names, if you
please. How ? "

" By eloping ? "

" Eloping ! " repeated Miss Weldon, aghast.

" Yes, my love. Runrung away with me, you know,
and being married by special license. Come ! don't look
so confounded ; other girls do it every day, and twice as
much, for love, and why not you ? "

" But — oh, dear me, Gaston — "

" Yes, I know, I have taken all that into consideration ;
but still I maintain my point. I love you, as I have told
you once or twice before, if you remember, and I want to
be married, and this is the only way. That unreasonable
Q

230

A Wife's tragedy.

mother of yours is too absurd for anything, so I leave her
out of the question. You had better say *yes/ for I
never learned to court."

" But Gaston, to run away is so shocking ! What
would everybody say ? Oh, dear me 1 " cried Miss
Weldon, breathlessly.

Mr. Benoir resolutely lifted the flushed face, that was
dimpling all over with smiles, in spite of her best efforts
to look unspeakably shocked.

" Sophie, do you love me ? "
I "Ye-e-es!"

" Well, then, don't be talking nonsense ! Let every-
body say what everybody pleases. Mrs. Gaston Benoir
off on her bridal-tour can safely snap her fingers at them.
Come, Sophie, consent ! "

" Oh, dear me ! " said Miss Weldon, distressed. " I
don't know what to do, I'm sure ! "

" Are you afraid to trust me, Sophie ? "

" Oh, no !"

" Then consent, or let us part. I shall never ask you
again."

Sophie hid her face in her hands and wouldn't speak.
Mr. Benoir rose sternly.

" I wish you a good afternoon, Miss Weldon. I see
we are to part."

" No, no ! " exclaimed Sophie, starting up alarmed, as
he knew she would. " Don't go, Gaston ! I consent ; I
will do anything, only don't go ! "

" That is my darling, sensible little girl ! " said Mr.
Benoir, delighted, and of course rewarding Sophie with
an embrace. " I thought you would come to it ! Now,
when shall it be ? "

" Oh, I don't know ! " said Sophie, in distress again.
" It seems so dreadful, you know ! "

" Pooh ! Stolen kisses are always sweetest. Let me
see — not this week — I can't very well, but next will do.
Can you be ready by the ipiddle of next week ? "

MR. BENOIR's dilemma.

231

" I suppose so. But — oh, dear me, Gaston — "
" There ! " said Mr. Benoir, impatiently, " you have
made that remark several times before, I think. Now
for details. We will go out driving some morning and
forget to return. A convenient clergyman can be found
to perform the ceremony ; and then you are Mrs. Gaston
Benoir as fast as a weding-ring can make you, and ac-
countable to no one but me for your actions. You can
write a penitent letter to your mother that will melt the
obdurate old lady at once. Mothers and fathers always
come round, I notice, when it's of no use holding out
any longer."

" Do you really think so, Gaston ? " said Sophie,
relenting.

" I know so, my dear. Then we will start on our
wedding tour; it shall be where you please — Lapland,
if it suits you best, and you shall see, my pretty one,
what the world is made of beyond this dull little village."

Sophie's blue eyes sparkled.

" I shall like that ! But, Gaston—"

" Well, my dear?"

" How about my clothes. I shall have nothing to wear ? "

" Never mind," said Mr. Benoir, jingling a handful of
eagles in his pocket, " here is the needful. You shall wear
satins and velvet night and day, if it pleases you."

" You are a darling," said Sophie, laughing and blush-
ing ; " and after the wedding-tour — what then ? "

" Then we shall come back, perhaps. I am tired of
great cities, not to speak of being too well known there,
and this quiet place soothes a fellow somehow. I think
I shall come back, and buy an estate, and build a villa,
or something of that sort, buried in trees and flower-
gardens, and turn gentleman-farmer. How would you
like that ? "

Oh, I should like it ! " cried Sophie, enthusiastically ;
" but are you really, really rich enough to do all this,
Gaston ? '\

232

A wife's tragedy.

" Eeally rich enough, Mrs. Benoir, and able to do twice
as much. I have the purse of Fortunatus in my vest-
pocket."

" I should think so I Gaston, dear," coaxingly, " tell
me where you found it."

Gaston, dear, sealed the pleading lips in very lover-like
fashion.

" Twelve months after date I promise to tell Mrs. Benoir
the secret of my wealth, for value received. Don't coax,
it is of no use. That is all settled now — isn't it ? "

" I suppose so ! You have everything your own way."

" And I always mean to have ! " thought Mr. Benoir,
but he did not say so.

" What day next week are we to-~to — oh, how dread-
ful it seems ! " cried Sophie.

" I don't know exactly — Wednesday or Thursday, very
likely. Meantime you will say nothing of this, of course."

" Of course not ! Gaston, I wish — I wish we were not
obliged to run away ! "

" So do I, my pretty fiancee, but necessity knows no
law ; so don't distress yourself. And now I think I will
step down-stairs and get a glass of wine from mamma-in-
law. I feel very thirsty after all this love-making ! "

" Come back soon, Gaston," Sophie said, shyly.

" All right," said easy Mr. Benoir, sauntering out of the
parlour, humming a tune.

Long after he left her, Sophie Weld on sat there in a
blissful dream. It was all very proper, and very maidenly,
of course, to be shocked and horrified, and so forth, at a
proposal to elope ; but for all that, little ecstatic thrills
were vibrating through her heart at the thought. Not to
speak of the romance (and who ever knew a girl of
eighteen who did not think of the romance ?) not to
speak of the delight of being married (and who ever
knew of a girl of eighteen, or twenty-eight either, who
did not want to be .married ?) there was the glorious
-prospect of seeing for the first time the great outer world

f

MR. BENOm'S DILEMMA. 233

of which she had read and heard so much. She would be
a rich man's wife — and such a man, too ! How proud
she would be of him ; so handsome, so elegant, so gentle-
manly, and such a wonderful singer. She would live in
a lovely villa, with servants to come at her beck ; with a
lady's maid; perhaps a carriage to ride in, and satin
morning- wrappers very likely. How the young ladies of
St. Mary's would envy her — they did that now with right
good will, but how much more so then ! Who knew even
what society she might not get into ? She and that dark,
beautiful Mrs. Arthur Sutherland, whom she admired be-
yond everything, might be bosom friends yet. A vision
rose before Sophie — the long drawing-room at Maple wood ;
she had seen it once, and its untold splendour had haunted
her ever since. Mrs. Sutherland at the piano ; and she
(Mrs. Benoir) resplendent in blue velvet and diamond
necklace, listening, while Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Benoir
smoked their cigars on the lawn, and Mr. Benoir looked
by far the handsomer of the two.

Sophie's castle in the air went up faster than ever
Aladdin's palace did. The common hotel-parlour, with
its faded carpet and shabby chairs ; the muddy, sloppy,
deserted street ; the ceaseless rain and raw wind, were all
alike lost to view for the time, and Sophie was happy.
What a splendid fellow her lover was ! — so like one of
those dear, delightful, mysterious, dark -looking brigands,
she loved so much to read about. He was handsome
enough, and good enough, Sophie knew, for a king, and —

" Dear, dear, dear Gaston ! how much I love you ! " she
thought, with the rosy light in her face again.

Something brought her meditations to an end there —
a curious figure fluttering along in the chilly wind. A
tall woman, so slender as to make her height remarkable,
dressed in black, and wearing a black veil down over her
face. Sophie looked at her curiously — the woman came
steadily on through the wet and windy twilight.

"Why," exclaimed Sophy, aloud, " she is coming here'"

234 A wife's tkagedy.

Two minutes after, the parlour-door opened, and Fanny
Weldon came in.

" Sophie, are you here ? Oh, yes ! Please step this
way, ma'am. Sophie, here's a lady says she wants to see

you."

" To see me ? " said Sophie, rising in her surprise, as
the tall woman in black came forward into the room.

" Yes, quite alone, if you please," said a voice behind
the veil.

Fanny took the hint, ^nd retreated. Sophie, still in a
state of surprise, presented a chair.

" Won't you sit down ? " said Sophie, and not knowing
what else to say, paused, and sat down herself.

The woman in black took the seat, but still keeping
her veil down, and staring at her through it, as Sophie felt.

" You are Miss Sophie Weldon ? " said the visitor.

" Yes," said Sophie.

The mysterious lady threw back her veil, and Sophie
saw a face she had never seen before, and which she
never forgot. So handsome and so haggard, so dark and
so fierce, with great hollow black eyes, and thin, com-
pressed lips.

" You don't know me ? " said the visitor, staring in a
most uncomfortable manner out of those wild, black eyes.

" No," said Sophie, " I don't. I never saw you before,
to the best of my knowledge."

Nor heard of me ? My name is Rebecca Isaacs."

" Nor heard of you," said Sophie, more and more sur-
prised.

" Ah ! " said the owner of the black eyes, " I thought
perhaps you had, knowing Gaston Benoir, who knows me
so well."

" Mr. Benoir ? " said Sophie, startled strangely by the
manner of her visitor ; " he knows you — does he ? "

" Knows me ! " repeated her visitor, with a laugh that
sounded uncomfortably hard and mirthless ; oh, yes !
Mr. Benoir knows me very well ! You are to be married
to him, I hear."

MR. BENOIR'S dilemma.

235

" Ma'am 1 " faltered Sophie, very much scared.

" Don't be alarmed, I beg. Miss Weldon ! I won't hurt
you, and there is no need of that frightened face. Yes,
I heard that you were going to be married to Gaston
Benoir, and I came here to see."

" And what business is it of yours ? " arose to Sophie's
lips ; but the dark, haggard face, and big, glittering, black
eyes, looked so startling in the twilight, that her courage
failed her.

" Why do you wish to know ? " she asked, quite tremb-
lingly, instead.

" Because I came to forbid the marriage. Gaston
Benoir can never make you his wife."

Sophie gave a gasping cry, and then sat spell-bound.

" He cannot marry you," reiterated the woman in black,
"because he is bound to another — to me !"

" Are you his wife ? " Sophie gasped, rather than said.

" No ! " said the woman ; " no wedding ring ever crossed
my finger; but he is bound to me by every tie of honour
and truth — by every solemn promise that man can give.
He belongs to me, and to me alone. I should have been
his wife, long, long ago, if he were anything but a false-
hearted, lying scoundrel. He has no right to marry an-
other, and he never shall !"

The suppressed vehemence of her tone and the white
fury throbbing in her face were indescribable. Poor Sophie
shrank away from her, and hid her face in her hands. Her
visitor looked at her with no touch of pity in her flaming
black eyes.

"If you are crying for him," she said, bitterly, "you had
better dry your tears, he is not worth one. He has deceived
me as basely and cruelly as ever woman was deceived. He
has deceived you ; for, no longer ago than last week, he
promised solemnly to marry none but me. When were you
to be his wife ? "

" Next week," Sophie sobbed, in an outburst of girlish
distress. "Oh, dear me ! dear me! I wish I had never been
born!"

236

A wife's tragedy.

" Bah I " cried the woman, with supreme scorn; " what
do you cold-blooded creatures here in the North know of
love, and passion, and hate, and misery, such as we — such
as I feel ? You sit there crying now, as you would cry, I
dare say, for a party, or a new bonnet you had lost, and
forget your trouble a month after in a new lover, as you
would in a new bonnet. If I could weep as you do, I might
forgive Gaston Benoir. I might leave this place, and let
him marry his latest fancy. But I cannot weep, and I
cannot forgive ! Where is he ? "

" Down stairs," said Sophie, whose handkerchief was
quite drenched with tears ; " he will be here in a little
while. Wait until he comes ; and if what you say is true,
let him choose between us. I am sure I cannot say fairer
than that."

Sophie's sobs here quite drowned her voice, and her
visitor broke into a short, disagreeable laugh.

" Yes, yes, let it be as you say; let him choose between
us. Ah ! here he comes !"

A quick step was taking the stairs three at a time, and
he came noisily into the room, whistling an opera tune. It
was so dark, coming out of the lighted hall into the dim
parlour, that Mr. Benoir only saw the figure sitting in the
chair, and not the other, crouching on a low stool, its face
hidden in its hands. Perhaps, too, the wine he had drank
— and he had drank a good deal — had raised his spirits
and dimmed his vision, for he caught the figure in the chair
rapturously in his arms.

" My darling Sophie ! " he cried ; " all in tlie dark ?
Why, what's this ? Bonnet and shawl on, and quite wet !
Now you never mean to say you have been out ? "

Sophie gave a little gasp of consternation, and rose up.
The woman in the chair arose at the same instant, and
flung him off so violently that he reeled back.

" You have made a slight mistake, Mr. Benoir," said a
terribly familiar voice. " I don't happen to be your dar-
ling Sophie, so you had better reserve your embraces."
" The devil ! " exclaimed Mr. Benoir, greeting her in his

MR. BENOIR'S dilemma.

237

amazement as he had greeted her once before ; " Rebecca ! "

" Exactly," said Rebecca. " I see you recognise me,
although it is dark, and so does Miss We] don. Perhaps
we had better have a light, that you may make sure."

Sophie was already lighting the lamp. As she placed
it on the table, she saw her lover standing, pale and con-
founded, staring at her dark visitor, whose fierce black
eyes never winked. Only for a moment. Mr. Benoir was
not easily discomposed at any time, and the wine he had
drank warmed his courage.

" I say, Sophie," he said, turning to his frightened and
tearful fiancee, " who is this ? An escaped Bedlamite ? "

Rebecca walked up to him with so tigerish a glare that
involuntarily he recoiled.

" Gaston Benoir," she hissed rather than said, "you know
me and I know you. I know you for a liar, a swindler, a
gambler, and a scoundrel ! What do you know me for ? "

"A she-devil ! " said Mr. Benoir, " if ever there was one.
Suppose I do know you, what the dense do you mean by
coming here and frightening this young lady into fits ? "

" Oh, Gaston ! " cried Sophie, clinging to him, and melt-
ing into another outburst of tears, " She has been saying
the most dreadful things. She says you have deceived
her and deceived me."

" Deceived you ! " said Mr. Benoir with a short laugh.
" I should like to know how she makes that out ? "

"She says — she says," sobbed Sophie, "that you promis-
ed to marry her."

" Well," said Mr. Benoir, " suppose I did, and supposing
I repent of this promise, what then ? "

He looked full at Rebecca, his handsome face contemp-
tuous, defiant. Rebecca stood like a black marble statue,
her face all white and rigid, her black eyes flaming like
burning stars.

" Yes," she repeated slowly. " What then ? "

" Why then, she may go to Old Nick, where she belongs,
for me," replied the ex-Troubadour. " Sophie, my little
• larljng, stop crying. You'll swell your face and redden

238

A wife's tragedy.

your eyes and nose, and won't look pretty, you know.
Miss Eebecca Isaacs, or Stone, or whatever you choose to
call yourself, it is going to be a stormy night, and pitch-
dark, and the sooner you are on the road home the better."

The wine Mr. Benoir had drank had made him fool-
hardy indeed, or, knowing this woman as he did, he never
would have dared to talk like this. She stood before
him ominously calm, never taking her jet-black eyes off
his face — eyes that had, in the lamplight, a horribly wolf-
ish, hungry glare.

" And this is all you have to say to me, Gaston — to me,
Rebecca Isaacs ? "

" All, Miss Isaacs ! '

" And a few nights ago, you swore that I, and I only,
should be your wife."

" Did I ? Well I wanted to keep you quiet, I suppose,
and I knew that would do it. I didn't mean it you know,
and I don't."

" And you mean to marry her ? "

Mr. Benoir encircled Sophie with his arm, and bent and
kissed the tearful face hiding itself on his shoulder.

" My pretty Sophie ? Yes, I mean to marry her. Don't
you admire my taste, Rebecca ? Don't you think I shall
have a charming little wife ? "

Rebecca Isaacs walked to the door. With her hand on
the knob, she turned and looked at him. Such a look !
In either eye sat a devil. Even Mr. Benoir was discom-
posed ; but, before he could speak, she did.

" You have made your choice, Gaston," she said, in that
suppressed voice of hers. " You have told the truth for
once. Miss Weldon, I congratulate you. Don't you be
afraid of my ever coming here to alarm you again. I have
heard all I wanted to hear, and am much obliged to your
future husband for his candour. Mr. Benoir, good night."

" Rebecca 1 " he called, startled strangely by the tone in
which she spoke, by the awful light in her eyes, but Re-
becca w'as gone. Out in the wind and rain, flitting along
like a dark ghost through the blind, black night*

CHAPTER XXII.

DEEPENING MYSTEKY.

MISS Sutherland and Rebecca, the housemaid,
had had another interview on the morning after
that confidential talk in the former's room. This time it
was solicited by Rebecca, and the two had come to a
thorough understanding. The housemaid had spoken
with remarkable plainness ; and, though Lucy's blue eyes
had glittered a little, she had taken it all in very good
part.

" We had better understand one another perfectly. Miss
Sutherland," Rebecca said. " I know your motive in
wishing to ferret out the secret between your cousin's
wife and Gaston Benoir. You hate Mrs. Sutherland, and
you would get her in your power if you could, and I don't
think you will be over-particular as to the means. I
don't want you to think that I am right — admission could
not make my belief stronger, as denial could not make it
weaker."

" You are bold ! " said Lucy Sutherland, looking at her
with that pale glitter in her light eyes.

" Yes, Miss Sutherland ; a woman is generally bold
when she is reckless and desperate. I am both, if what
you said last night be true. Perhaps you don't under-
stand these things ; but when a woman like me, hot-
blooded and passionate, sets her whole heart on one stake
and loses, she is not apt to be over-particular what she
says or does. If you choose, after this, to let me remain

240

A wife's tragedy.

here in my character of housemaid, we may indirectly
further each other's ends ; if you don't — why, no matter.
I can go elsewhere. I came here, not for the situation of
chambermaid, Miss Sutherland, but to attain an object,
as you have already suspected. That object I have
attained ; and, if what you told me be correct, I shall
probably leave this place very soon."

" Rebecca," Miss Sutherland exclaimed, with irrepres-
sible curiosity, " who are you — what are you ? You are
more of a mystery than even I took you to be ! "

" I need be no mystery ; and there is very litj^le romance
in my life. I am of Jewish descent ; and, through Gaston
Benoir's business transactions with my father, I first knew
him. I have neither father nor mother now. If my
father had left me as wealthy at his death as it was sup-
posed he would have done, I should have been that man's
wife before this. But I was no heiress, and Gaston
Benoir deserted me ! "

"Yes," said Lucy, ''for little Sophie Weldon, who is no
heiress either."

" I shall soon ascertain that," said Rebecca, not losing
her ominous calm. " What I want to say to you, Miss
Sutherland, is this. I can further your ends by remain-
ing here, if you will permit me. Shall I remain ? "

" My ends ! " said Lucy, with a strange look. " What
are my ends ? "

" The destruction of your cousin's wife ! "

" Rebecca ! "

" Oh, Miss Sutherland, I quite understand. If you say
remain, I remain. If you say go, I go. I am alone in
the world, and a reckless woman. I don't much care
what becomes of me ; and I can accomplish what lies be-
fore me elsewhere as well as here."

" What lies before you ! I don't understand you, Re-
becca."

" It is not necessary you should," said Rebecca, with a
dark look. " Shall I go or stay ? "

DEEPENING MYSTERY.

241

" Stay,'' said Miss Sutherland, " and act as you please ;
but, remember, whatever happens, I am no accomplice of
yours. I know nothing of your designs, and wish to
know nothing. Your suspicions may be erroneous or
correct ; but they are only suspicions. I admit nothing.
While you remain here, you are free to go and come as
you please ; but it were better to give the other servants
no grounds for gossip. You understand ? "

" I understand. I admire your prudence, and am much
obliged to you."

Rebecca bent her head, and quitted the room. All that
day her housemaid's duties were performed as usual.
There was nothing to find fault with, nothing slighted or
left undone. The kitchen-cabinet discovered, perhaps,
that the dark, inscrutable face of the unsocial housemaid
was darker and gloomier even than usual ; but they had
a wholesome awe of those fierce black eyes of hers, and
prudently criticised at a safe distance. Later in the
afternoon, without asking permission or speaking to any
one, she had dressed and gone out in the rain ; and Lucy,
quietly observant, had guessed her errand.

The night set in, wild, and wet, and windy. Lucy, for
some cause, grew strangely nervous about the absent
housemaid. Every blast of stormy wind that roared
through the rocking trees and shook the old stone house
vibrated along her nerves with a fear that was nameless.
Such a stormy night, and such a long^ desolate walk for
that girl back from the village. Suppose she and Gaston
had met — and to meet him Lucy felt certain had been
her errand — suppose they quarrelled, as quarrel they were
sure to do. Suppose he followed her along that dark,
forsaken road, and the mysterious housemaid disappeared
as suddenly and mysteriously as she had appeared.
Months, perhaps, after this, a woman's body would be
found, with a grisly gash across the throat, and some
tattered fragments of a black dress, to identify Rebecca
Stone ! Lucy Sutherland whitened at the thought, and

A wife's TitAGEDY.

waited, with a nervous anxiety she had never felt before
in her life, for the coming of her servant.

It was nine o'clock, and the storm was raging wild and
tempestuous before Rebecca came. Lucy met her on the
stairs, drenched from head to foot with the soaking rain,
splashed with mud, pale, haggard, and wretched-looking.
All her beauty seemed to have gone in a few short hours.
No one would have called the hollow-eyed vision, dripping
with wet, handsome now.

" Rebecca ! Rebecca ! " Lucy said, breathlessly, " where
have you been such a night ? "

The girl looked at her with a weird light in her spectral
eyes.

" You know," she said ; " to St. Mary's."

" You are soaking wet," said Miss Sutherland, hastily,
and with very uncommon solicitude. " Go to your room
at once, and change your clothes."

Rebecca obeyed the first part of this injunction by
brushing past, and going to her room. But not to change
her clothes. She seated herself by the window in her
dripping garments, and there kept vigil the long night
through. Gaston Benoir, in his hotel chamber, sleeping
the sleep of the just, might, perhaps, have had his dreams
disturbed had he known of that ghostly night-watch, and
the thoughts the deceived Jewess was thinking.

For the rest of the week, Rebecca was the same in-
scrutable mystery to all as before. She went through
her daily tasks with faultless and painstaking precision —
she was civilly attentive when spoken to, but she never
addressed any one of her own accord, and never lingered
a moment in the kitchen among her fellows, save when it
was absolutely necessary. She sat at the window when
her day's duties were done, gazing out with her glittering
black eyes, staring at vacancy, and a look of fierce, steady
purpose in the compressed mouth. In the keeping of
these silent watches, the fierce, suppressed spirit within
her wore her to a shadow ; but to all Miss Sutherland's

1)3S£PENING MYStERY.

solicitous inquiries, she always answered, " No, she was
not ill ; she was perfectly well." What the silent, pas-
sionate-hearted girl suffered during these days and nights,
her haggard face and hollow eyes alone told.

Some one else in that old gray stone mansion was wan-
ing, too, like the waning moon. Eulalie moved about the
house slowly and wearily, more like a spirit than a wo-
man. Her wan, moonlight face startled you, out of those
profuse jetty ringlets, and the large, dark eyes looked at
you with a wistful mournfulness, very sad to see. The
sweet, low laugh, the soft singing in the blue summer
twilight, no longer made music in the old rooms. The
sunshine seemed to have faded out of her young life for-
ever, and seeing her in moonlight or twilight, so small, so
wan, so fragile, you would have looked to see her float
away in the pale mist, like any other spirit.

Arthur Sutherland watched his wife fading away, day
by day, before his eyes, with a trouble Heaven only knew.

He could guess the cause — this hidden, miserable secret
— the mysterious power that unknown man at St. Mary's
held over her, and from which she would give him no
right to shield her. He had not spoken of it to her since ;
but he never ceased to think of it — to bewilder himself
over it all day long, and to have it disturb his dreams by
night. There was a mournful tenderness in his love and
care for her now, an unceasing watchfulness, that was
very like her grandfather in the old days. He was so un-
happy, and so solicitous to hide that unhappiness, and ap-
pear as he used to be, that his heart never knew peace of
late ; and it seemed to himself, when he was alone, that
he took off a mask and stopped some weary piece of
acting.

One evening, almost a week after that night of storm .
and wind, on which Rebecca, the housemaid, had disturb-
ed Mr. Benoir's wooing a little, he sauntered out into the
sunset to smoke an after-dinner cigar. A brilliant sunset,
the whole Western sky rosy with its glory, and billows

244

A wife's tragedy.

of purple and gold sailing through fleecy white. He
turned his face terrace-ward, and the sea spread out before
him with the reflected hues of the sunset gorgeous on its
placid face.

The summer breeze was deliciouslv cool, and came
sweet with the scent of rose and jasmine and southern-
wood. Sea and sky melted away far ofi" into purple
mist, in and out of which ships flitted like phantoms, with
their white wings spread. The hush of eventide lay over
all, and a pale young erescent-moon glimmered in the blue
arch overhead. The beauty of the summer sunset was
indescribable, and leaning over the iron railing of the
terrace, as he had seen her so often before, stood Eulalie,
as he was never in this world to see her again. Long,
long after, that vision came back in other summer-sun-
sets— that little frail figure, robed in white, with a shawl
of crimson silk trailing off" in the grass, and the feathery
black ringlets falling low.

She looked up with a welcoming smile as he drew
near ; but she was so colourless, so thin, so worn, that it
went to his heart. The great dark eyes had a look of
utter weariness, as if the soul, looking out of their mourn-
ful depths, were tired of the struggle and longed to be
free.

" My pale little wife," he said, tenderly, " what shall I
do to keep you from fading away into a spirit, as you are
doing ? "

Her eyes filled with tears at the loving compassion of
his tone, and she clasped her thin hands round his arm.

" Arthur, dear," she said, " how good you are to me ;
how true, how patient, how loving ; and how ungrateful
I am in return."

" Ungrateful, my love ! Oh no ? "

" I have been thinking, Arthur, while I stood here, how
happy — oh, how very happy — I have been in this place.
My whole life seems to come back to me to-night, and, I
wonder why I should have been so blessed, while thou-

DEEPENING MYSTERY.

245

sands of others more deserving drag out their lives in
misery, and want, and wretchedness. I have been too
happy, Arthur ; and I have not been good, I have not de-
served it, and so I have no reason to complain now."

" You not good, my darling," he said mournfully ; my
precious wife, you have been the good angel of all who
ever knew you."

" No," said the little Creole, shaking her head, peni-
tently ; " no, I have not been so good as I should have
been. I know you must think it very, very bad of me,
Arthur, that I do not tell you this secret of my life now.
But I cannot, I dare not, and yet you trust and love me
still."

"I will trust and love you until death, my darling."

" My poor dear," she said, looking at him with infinite
compassion, " you may not have to trust and love me very
long then, after all."

"Eulalie ! Eulalie! what are you saying?" he cried, in
affright. " What do you mean ? "

" Arthur, dear, would it grieve you very much, very
much, to lose me ? "

" To lose you, Eulalie ? "

" Yes, Arthur— if I should die ! "

He caught her suddenly in his arms, his face as white
as her dress.

" For God's sake, Eulalie, don't say such things ! I
couldn't bear it — I will not lose you ! Let me take you
away from here ! Let me take you to Cuba — to Europe
— anywhere out of this — any where from this man ? "

Again she shook her head.

" It would do no good, Arthur. He would follow me
to the ends of the earth to wreak his revenge ! "

" His revenge ! My love, how did you ev€?r injure
him ? "

" I, Arthur ! Oh, it is not that — it is not I who in-
jured him ! But it is all the same — the punishment falls
on me ! Arthur, dearest, best husband that ever was in
p

246

A wife's tragedy.

this world — it is very hard ; but I fear, I fear we must
part soon. Oh, Arthur ! once I thought as you do — that I
could not lose you ; and yet now — "

Her head dropped on his arm, and her voice died away.
She was not crying ; her despair was beyond that relief.

" I will know what all this mystery means ! " Arthur
Sutherland cried with clenched teeth. " I will see this
Gaston Benoir at once, and end this horrible mystery. I
shall not ask you to tell me, Eulalie ; if you have pro-
mised the dead, keep your promise ; but he shall ! I will
endure this no longer ! "

He started up while he spoke, but she clung to him,
her beseeching eyes lifted to his face.

" For my sake, Arthur — if you ever loved me — wait !
You shall know, you shall know very soon ; but be patient
a little while yet, dear ! You are happier now than you
will be, my poor Arthur, when you know the truth."

" Eulalie," said Arthur, " if you were an adept in the
art of torturing, you could not succeed better. No cer-
tainty, let it be ever so dreadful, could be worse than this
suspense ! "

" Perhaps not," said Eulalie, sadly ; " but wait, Arthur,
for my sake ! You will not have to wait very long. The
sun has set, and it is growing cold ; let us go back to the
house."

Clinging to his arm, she went slowly back to the house
with him. For the last time ! But she knew it not ;
only conscious of being weary and cold, and shivering in
the warm air. They walked to the house as they never
were to walk together again in this world — silent and
sad, but all unconscious that the dark clouds gathering in
their sky were at the blackest, and the storm so awfully
near at hand.

Mr. Sutherland spent a wakeful night, and descended
when the breakfast bell rang, pale, jaded, and unrefreshed.
Mrs. Sutherland never got down before luncheon-time of
late, so Lucy and he breakfasted alone. His letters lay

DEEPENING MYSTERV.

247

beside his plate as usual, quite a little heap of them, and
he opened and read, while he sipped his coffee and ate his
toast. There was one from his mother, which he read
aloud to Lucy — she and Augusta were still at Cape May,
and passing the warm weather very pleasantly. Philip
Sutherland was still their cavalier, and was as lazy and
good for nothing, and as vehemently scolded by Augusta
as ever.

The last letter of the heap rather surprised Mr. Suther-
land. It was in an unknown hand, post-marked St.
Mary's, and bore date the preceding day.

" What have we here ? " he said, with a puzzled face,
" I have no correspondents in St. Mary's who write like
this. Ah!"

He stopped suddenly and tore it open. He glanced
at the top. It began formally, " Sir." He glanced at
the signature — "A Friend." The letter was anony-
mous, and he had expected to see the name of Gaston
Benoir.

Very much surprised, Mr Sutherland began the letter
at once, his face growing deadly pale as he read :

" The wife of Arthur Sutherland — the descendant of
a long line of proud and honourable men — should be,
like Csesar's, beyond reproach. If Mr. Sutherland
chooses to see an interesting sight, let him be in hiding
to-night at nine o'clock, near the old summ'er-house in
the grounds. He will see, if he chooses to use his eyes,
his wife stealing in secrecy and darkness, like a guilty
thing, to meet the handsomest man in St. Mary's —
Gaston Benoir. It is not the first time that this charm-
ing Creole wife has stolen to meet this dark Adonis,
though Mr. Sutherland may not know it. Mr. Benoir
counts his dollars by the thousand since his first meet-
ing with Mrs. Sutherland, and that Mr. Sutherland will
investigate the matter is the sincere advice of

"A Friend."

248

A wife's tkagedy.

Arthur Sutherland's face was as white as that of a
dead man, as he finished the anonymous epistle. An
anonymous letter is the act of a coward and a villain,
and no one knew it better than he ; but for all they are
despised, they rarely fail to have their effect. Was his
wife and Gaston Benoir the theme of village-gossip
already ? Was he, when he rode through St. Mary's
pointed out and pitied as the betrayed husband, the con-
tiding fool who was blind where everyone else saw ?
Could Eulalie be capable of deceit ? For one brief in-
stant his faith in her was staggered — for one only ; then
all his love and trust in the bright, beautiful creature he
had won from her tropic home to bless his life came
doubly back. He crushed the letter in his hand, and
rose from the table, the pallor of his face turning to
indignant red.

" I will show the villainous letter to Eulalie," he
thought. " I will see the indignant truth flashing out of
her glorious eyes."

Never looking at or thinking of his cousin, who sat
regarding him in calm astonishment, he hurried to his
wife's apartment, with the crushed letter in his hand.
But Eulalie was asleep, sweetly and peacefully as a little
child, her head pillowed on her arm, her beautiful hair
all tossed over the white pillows. She looked so good
and innocent, so much of a child in her slumber, and yet
with something of the sadness of her waking life haunt-
ing her sleep too. His heart smote him for even that
momentary suspicion, and he stooped and softly kissed
the pale face.

" My innocent darling ! my poor distressed little child-
wife ! I will disbelieve my eyes and ears and all my
senses, but I will never believe you guilty. Whatever
this horrible secret between you and this man, the damn-
ing insinuation this foul letter conveys is false. If I had
the writer here I would throttle him ! "

Mr. Sutherland did not return to his unfinished break-

DEEPENING MYSTERY. 249

fast. He wandered aimlessly out into the grounds, and,
almost without knowing it, toward the old summer-house.
He had never been there since the night in which he had
found Philip Sutherland battling with his trouble on the
cold ground ; and there was something ghastly to him in
the place — as if poor Philip were dead, and his spirit
haunted it still. The sylvan silence of the spot was only
broken by the singing of the birds, the waving of the
trees, and the musical murmur of wind and sea ; and it
looked by day — all wreathed in green and scented with
roses — a fit spot, indeed, for a lovers' rendezvous. No
shadow of the awful deed so soon to be done there
hovered darkly anywhere, to mar its peaceful beauty.

The floor of the summer-house bore evidence of man's
occupation ; for stumps of half -smoked cigars littered it
in all directions, and a soiled novel, of the yellow-cover
species, and half a dozen sporting-papers, lay around.
But there was nothing in this. Mr. Benoir, of course, had
been there ; he knew that already ; and Mr. Benoir was
always smoking and reading. He turned out of the
place, and loitered up and down the terrace, and through
the leafy arcades and green woodland aisles of his ances-
tral home, trying to forget that cowardly letter, but all in
vain. The words seemed branded in his heart, and tor-
tured him almost as much as if they had been burned into
his flesh with red-hot iron. His wife — his pure, beauti-
ful Eulalie — the talk of St. Mary's — she, the benefactress
of all there who were poor, or suffering, or distressed,
whispered of as — oh ! the thought was maddening. He
leaned against the trunk of a tree, in such bitter, bitter
shame and humiliation as only proud and sensitive men
can feel, and they alone, in such supreme moments.

" I love her," he said, with passionate grief, " as well
as ever man loved woman ; but I would rather see her in
her coffin than like this. Oh, my wife ! my wife ! that
you should have fallen so low ! "

Once or twice during these wretched, aimless wander

250

A wife's tragedy.

ings he had started up to return to the chamber of his
wife and show her the letter ; but he always stopped
short on the way.

" My poor girl ! " he thought, with infinite compassion,
" she has enough to bear already without this. No, I
will never tell her of this vile letter ; and may Heaven
confound its writer, whoever it may be ! "

Later in the day, Mr. Sutherland mounted his horse and
set off at mad gallop — anywhere from his own thoughts.
He rode through St. Mary's with a defiant face, and saw
Mr. Benoir, handsome as Lucifer before his fall, sitting on
the hotel piazza smoking, and reading the morning paper.
He looked up and raised his hat, and Mr. Sutherland's
reply was a scowl. Mr. Benoir looked after him with infi-
nite unconcern.

" Go it ! " said Mr. Benoir, apostrophizing the receding
figure. " Look as black as you like, my turn is very near
at hand. I dare say I should have postponed it longer,
for the fun of tormenting that little beauty of yours ; but
I want to wind up matters, and run away with Sophie.
The sooner we are out of the claws of that wild-cat Re-
becca, the better."

Mr. Sutherland returned to dinner, and found his wife
not yet out of her room. She was lying on a sofa, dressed,
when he entered the apartment, suffering from one of her
bad headaches.

" Go down to dinner, Arthur," she said, "and don't keep
Lucy waiting, I do not wish any. Trifine will fetch me a
cup of tea."

" Then I shall stay with you, my love."

" No, no ! " said, Eulalie hurriedly. " I had rather you
went down. You know I am always better alone when my
head aches."

She said it without looking at him, her pale face hidden
in the cushions, Arthur descended to dinner with a very
grave face, and his appetite effectually taken away. He
sat down to read when it was over — that is, he held a

DEEPENING MYSTERY.

251

book up before his face, and never said a word. How long
he sat staring at it he never knew — half a century or so,
it seemed to him, when Lucy, who had been out of the
room for some moments, entered, with a face full of con-
cern.

" How very rash of Eulalie, Arthur," she said, "with her
bad headache, too. She will get her death."

Her cousin looked up from his book, his heart seeming
suddenly to stand still.

" I suppose she thinks it will do her headache good,"
went on Lucy, " but she has just gone out towards the
terrace, I think. It is very foolish of her, and you had
better go and fetch her back."

Arthur arose — his face very, very pale, and went out,
without a word. The night was cloudy and the moon over-
cast, but the starlight was bright, and he walked straight
to the terrace. No one was there, and he struck into the
woodland path leading to the summer-house. All was dark
and silent as the grave. He took his station under the
dense shadow of the trees, his arms folded — to wait. From
his post he could see the summer-house door, and no one
could leave it without passing him. How long he waited
— what he endured — keeping that horrible watch. Heaven
only knows ; but the door opened at last. And — yes — there
was no doubting it now — his wife came forth shrouded in
black, and Gaston Benoir stood behind her. The man's
parting words were spoken low, but in the hush of the
night, he heard him distinctly :

" Good-night, my pretty Eulalie ; I am sorry, very sorry
indeed, to distress you like this, but there is no help for
it. I cannot stand the pride of that aristocratic husband
of yours any longer, my dear, so I shall have the pleasure
of lowering it to-morrow by telling him your romantic
little history. Good-night, my little beauty, and a thou-
sand thanks for the money."

Eulalie flitted past him, her dress brushing him, but he
was undiscovered. He saw Gaston Benoir re-enter the

252

A wife's tragedy.

summer-house and close the door, and for one moment his
impulse was to rush in and throttle him. But he held
himself back, though his teeth were clenched, and cold
drops stood on his face.

" To-morrow ! to-morrow ! " he thought. " To-morrow
I shall know all ! "

CHAPTER XXIII.

eulalie's flight.

THE old fashioned clock in the entrance-hal] struck
ten, and eleven; and Arthur Sutherland did not
re-enter. Lucy, going her rounds to close up for the
night, was growing uneasy. She knew Eulalie was in
her chamber, for she had caught a glimpse of her going
spiritlessly up-stairs ; but her husband — where was he ?
She was just thinking of sending one of the men-servants
out to look for him when the front door opened, and he
entered. Lucy fairly recoiled at her own diabolical suc-
cess, for his face was ghastly, and he strode past her and
into the drawing-room as if he did not see her — as a man
might do, walking in his sleep. She dared not follow
him ; there was something in his face she had never seen
in it before, and that awed her. There is a dignity about
supreme troubles that awes involuutarily. Lucy felt it,
and went softly up-stairs.

" It has come," she said to herself. " My revenge, so
long and patiently waited for. My letter has succeeded
beyond my hopes. He cannot doubt even the evidence
of his own eyes. I wonder what the end will be ? "

Lucy was a long time falling asleep that night ; and
when she did sleep, her dreams were uneasy and disturbed.
Her cousin's white, stern face gleamed ghost-like through
them all, mingled strongly with the fierce, black eyes of
Rebecca. It was a relief when morning came, and she
rose to see the sun of a new day streaking with bars of
fiery red the eastern sky.

254

A wife's tragedy.

But, unrefreshing as Lucy's slumbers were, there was
one down-stairs who paced restlessly up and down the
long drawing-room the whole night through. He could
not go to his room. He could not face his wife yet. His
strong faith was shaken as, only a few hours before, he
had thought nothing could shake it. The image of his
wife, stealing, as the letter had said, in secrecy and dark-
ness, like a guilty thing, to meet this unknown man, was
ever before him, until he felt as if he were going mad.
Nothing could excuse such an act ; no secret could exten-
uate it. She had degraded herself, — she had degraded
him, as no Sutherland had ever been degraded before.
And yet, strange inconsistency ! feeling all this, he had
never loved her better than now. Through the long hours
of that miserable night he paced up and down, up and
down, trying to calm himself with the thought that to-
morrow would reveal all. And then, when the secret was
known, whatever'it was, the suffering it could inflict would
be nothing to what he was enduring now. He would take
his poor little wife far away from St. Mary's and those
who dared to talk of her, and be happy and at peace
again, as in the early days of their union. No more
secrets to keep them asunder, no miserable, torturing
doubts and fears to wear away their lives. Alas ! and
alas ! for human dreams !

Lucy Sutherland found her cousin asleep on one of the
sofas when, long after the usual breakfast hour, she went
there in search of him. He looked so pale and careworn
in his sleep that her woman's heart, made of flint for Eu-
lalie, melted at the suffering of the man she loved.

" Poor fellow ! " she thought. " Poor Arthur ! how hap-
py he might still be if that wretched Creole had never
come with her sorcery to blight his life ! "

It was nearly noon when Arthur awoke and sat up,
with a bewildered face. A moment later and he remem-
bered how he must have fallen asleep there, in the cold,
grey dawn of the morning, and he rose up with a sense

eulalie's flight.

255

of trouble vaguely at his heart. Then the remembrance
of Gaston Benoir and his words came back, and he knew
that the day had come that was to unfold the mystery of
his wife's life. He was stretching his hand out to the bell
when Lucy entered.

" Awake at last ? " she said smiling ; " how did you
happen to fall asleep here, Arthur ? "

" I hardly know," said Mr. Sutherland. " Has there
been any one here inquiring for me this morning ? "

"No."

" No one ! " said her cousin, a little disappointed. " I
expected a — a person — a gentleman to call. In fact,
Lucy," said Arthur rising, " I expect Mr. Benoir this morn-
ing ; and if he comes, show him into the library."

Lucy dropped her eyes, with an inconceivably calm
face, and bowed assent.

" Shall I send your breakfast into the library ? " she
asked.

" If you please. Has Eulalie risen yet ? "
" I have not been in Mrs. Sutherland's room, this morn-
ing, Do you wish me to ascertain ? "
" Oh, no ! "

A momentary desire to ascertain for himself made him
hesitate on his way to the library, but it was only mo-
mentary. Better not meet her until he should know all,
until the worst that could come was over, and when he
could take her in his arms and bid her fear no more.

Lucy despatched coffee and rolls to the library, and Mr.
Sutherland sat in his easy-chair, and resolutely wrenched
his thoughts from the trouble of his life and fixed them
on commonplace things. He wrote letters, he looked over
neglected accounts, he read the papers the morning mail
had brought, listening all the while for a ring at the bell
and a step in the hall that should announce the man for
whom he waited. But hour after hour passed, the long
sunshiny afternoon wore away, and no one came. With
every hour, he was growing more and more impatient ;

256

A wife's tragedy.

and when five o'clock came, and still no visitor, liis im-
patience reached its climax.

" I will wait no longer," he said. " I will go in search
of him. Another such day would drive me mad ! "

He rang the bell and ordered his horse. As he was
putting on his hat in the hall, he met Lucy, ever omni-
present.

" I will be back before dinner, if possible, Lucy," he
said. " Has my wife come down yet ? "
" Not yet."

Mr. Sutherland passed out.

His wife's non-appearance was not so unusual of late as
to surprise him. So he mounted and rode away. Lucy
looked after him thoughtfully.

" Gaston Benoir has not come to him," she said to her-
self ; "so he is going to Gaston Benoir. Oh, if I only
knew what this secret is 1 "

Mr. Sutherland rode direct to the village hotel. Mrs.
Weldon met him as he entered, and dropped her best
courtesy.

" Is Mr. Benoir here ? " asked Arthur, abruptly.

" Mr. Benoir ! Oh, dear, no, sir ; and I was just say-
ing to my Sophie it was the oddest thing what has
become of him. Mr. Benoir ain't been here since yester-
day evening."

" No ? " said Arthur, surprised. " Was he not here
last night 1 "

" Never came here last night, sir, for the first time
since he's been my boarder. That little fool, Sophie,
is as dreadfully cut up about it as if every friend she
ever had was dead. She says she knows something has
happened to him, or he would never stay away. There
she sits, all of a tremble, and as pale as a corpse, crying
and moaning and taking on, until I could box her ears — •
I could."

" It is strange," said Mr. Sutherland, thoughtfully
" very strange. I expected to see him to-day on a little

i

eulalie's flight.

257

matter of business ; and as he failed to come, I rode over
here, sure of finding him. You have no idea where
he has gone ? "

" Not the least, sir ! He ain't got many acquaintances
in the village, and always kept regular hours, I must
say."

Arthur turned away disappointed, and went out.
Could it be that Gaston Benoir had fallen asleep in
the summer-house, as he had fallen asleep in the draw-
ing-room. During the hours he had lingered in the
grounds, he had not seen him come forth ; and yet if it
were so, he could not surely sleep there all day. He
mounted his horse, and rode back to Maplewood, puzzling
himself over this new perplexity, and wondering if the
man had come in his absence. He sought out Lucy as
soon as he arrived, and anxiously inquired.

" No," said Miss Sutherland. " No one has called."

Arthur stood looking at her, blankly.

" And I think," continued the young lady, " you
should see why Mrs. Sutherland does not come down.
Her door is locked on the inside, and she will neither
answer nor admit anyone. Trifine says she has eaten
nothing to-day ! "

" Good heavens ! " cried Arthur aghast. " Eaten noth-
ing to-day ! Why did you not tell me this before I
went out ? "

" Because I did not know. Trifine came to me full of
alarm, an hour ago, to say she had tried half a dozen
times to gain admittance, without success. I then went
to Eulalie's room myself, and rapped and called repeat-
edly, but all in vain. There was no answer, and the
door was not opened."

Arthur waited to hear no more. He hurried up to his
wife's room, and knocked. There was no reply. He
turned the handle — the door was locked — he called her
by name — once, twice, louder and louder — and still all
remained as silent as the tomb.

258

A wife's tragedy.

Lucy had come up stairs after her cousin, and stood
breathless and expectant behind him.

As he turned round, she involuntarily recoiled at the
ghastly pallor of his face.

" Is there any key to fit this door ? " he asked, hoarsely ;
" must I break the lock ? "

" Wait one moment," Lucy said, " I think I can find
you a key."

She ran down stairs, and was back almost directly.
Her heart was beating so fast that she laid her hand on it
hard to still its wild throbbing, Whether it was hope or
fear that set it throbbing so tumultuously, she hardly
dared ask herself. What would they find when that door
was opened ? The fairy figure of the Creole wife, per-
haps, lying still and cold on the floor— all her troubles
over forever.

The key fitted the lock. Arthur threw open the door
and entered before her.

No ! Her first feeling was actually one of relief — no
stark, dead figure lay before them ; the room was quite
empty. The bed was undisturbed and unslept in. A few
dresses, and articles of wearing apparel lay scattered
about, and on the toilet-table lay a letter. It was ad-
dressed to Arthur, in his wife's hand. Still wearing that
fixed deadly pallor, he tore it open and read :

" My dear, dear Husband : — I may call you so still,
for the last time, since you will know all before you see
this. There was but one way of escape left for me —
flight ; and I have taken it ; have no fear for me ; do not,
seek me ; nothing can happen, however dreadful, half so
terrible as the fate from which I fly. Oh, if you only knew
what I have sufiered, what I am suffering as I write this,
you would know how much I need your pity and love,
when, perhaps, forever I have lost both. Oh, Arthur ! Ar-
thur ! If I had only been firm when you came to Cuba, and
refused to marry you, how much misery and shame and

eulalie's flight.

250

degradation you might have been spared ! But I loved
you so well — oh, so well ! and I was so selfish in my love,
and hoped so wildly that my enemy would never cross
my path, that I yielded, and have blighted your life as
well as my own. Arthur, dearest, it was not the light-
ning that struck me down that night years ago ; it was
the first shock of knowing what you now know.

" My love, my love, farewell ! How blessed I have
been as your wife, no woman can ever tell ; how dear you
are to me, how grateful I am to you. Heaven alone knows.
Believe all Gaston Benoir tells you ; it is true. You will
not blame me for this flight ; better I should fly than be
torn from you as — . Oh, the thought is maddening.
Farewell, my darling ! Think of me as tenderly as you
can, and that God may grant me a short life shall ever be
the praver of your lost

" EULALIE."

Arthur Sutherland looked up from the letter like a man
who had been stunned by a blow.

" Gone ! " he said, looking at Lucy, in a bewildered sort
of way ; " gone ! "

" Who ? Eulalie ? " Lucy asked, pale and breathless.
" Oh, Arthur ! where has she gone ? "

Her words seemed to recall him to himself. Without
replying, he read the letter over and over again — until all
was clear to his, at first, stunned senses.

He turned to Lucy, with a face that seemed changed to
marble.

" Lucy, my wife has gone."

" Gone ! " she vaguely repeated.

" Fled — ran away ! For God's sake, don't ask me to stop
and explain now, but try to help me if you can. When
did you see her last ? "

" Last night."

" Has no one seen her since ?"
" No one."

260

A wife's tragedy.

Mr. Sutherland strode from the room, and downstairs,
leaving his cousin hopelessly dazed. His only thought was
to find her — earth or sea, or all the secrets under heaven,
could never part him from her. He put on his hat and
overcoat, and hurried round to the stables. Before he could
reach them, a man came rushing out from among the trees,
beyond the terrace, with a very white and startled face.
It was one of the gardeners ; and at sight of his fright-
ened looks, Arthur involuntarily stopped.

"What is it, Richards ?" he said.

"For the liord's sake, Mr. Sutherland !" cried the man,
his very lips white with fear, " come here and see what
has been done ! "

Arthur turned and followed him — too benumbed by his
late shock even to wonder what this new mystery meant.
The man led the way straight to the summer-house — the
door lay open, and the tranquil evening light filled it.

" Look there, Mr. Sutherland," said the gardener, all
pale and trembling, and not going in.

The summer-house was not vacant. A man sat in a chair
before the table, across which his head and arms had fallen,
in a painfully unnatural and rigid position. There was a
pool of blood on the floor, in which his feet were dabbled,
and a murderous-looking poniard, crimson to the hilt, lay
near, as if it had been flung.

Arthur turned to the man with a face full of horror.

" What is this, Richards ? " he said ; " what does it
mean ? "

" Murder, Mr. Sutherland," said the man, in an awful
voice ; " a murder has been done here ! I daren't go in 1 "

Mr. Sutherland entered. He knew at the first glance
who the murdered man was, but he resolutely lifted up
the bowed head. The amber evening light, sifting through
the trees, fell full on the rigid face, more beautiful in
death than it had been in life. There in the trysting
place where Eulalie had met him, Gaston Benoir lay stark
and dead !

CHAPTER XXIV.

AFTER THE INQUEST,

ASTOEMY evening, the close of a stormy day. Raiil)
rain, rain, from early morning — rain and wind
now, and night closing down black and wild. The long,
forlorn blasts, sweeping up from the sea, shook the doors,
and rattled the windows of the old stone mansion. The
sea itself roared with a dull, incessant, thunder-like sound,
and the rocking pine woods, and the giant maples and
hemlocks around the house, echoed back the deafening
refrain. A wild night there on the rock-bound coast of
Maine — a terrible night for vessels drifting near those
low lee shores — a terrible night for any human creature
to be abroad.

Arthur Sutherland sat alone in the library on this tem-
pestuous summer night. The rainy day was chilly and
raw, and ever-thoughtful Lucy had caused a fire to be lit
for his comfort. He sat before it now, staring into the
red coals, with a gloom on his face darker than the gloom
of the rainy night. He sat there in the dull silence of
the house, listening blankly to the ceaseless rain lashing
the glass, and the uproar of the wind and sea. He sat
there as he had sat for hours and hours, as he might sit all
night, if undisturbed.

An awful hush lay ovei* the old house. Ever silent,
the silence that reigned there now was something new
and ghastly ; for, in one of the disused rooms, the body of
Q

262

A wife's 'TEAGEDY.

the dead man lay. The servants gathered in groups, and
talked in whispers, and passed the door of that room with
awe-struck faces. The solemn majesty of death pervaded
the house, and voices were hushed, and footfalls softened,
as if all the uproar of the elements could have awakened
that rigid sleeper.

The inquest had been held that day, and was over but
a few hours previously. The matter had been investi-
gated with the utmost care, but no light whatever could
be thrown on the mysterious tragedy. The last person
who had spoken to the dead man the previous evening,
was Sophie Weldon ; but Sophie had fallen down in a
dead faint on first hearing the news, and had been so
frantic and hysterical ever since, that her appearance at
the examination was quite out of the question.

Mrs. Weldon had seen him leave the house about dark,
and take the road leading to Maplewood, and had been
very much surprised at his non-return, but had never
dreamed of any evil happening to him ; and you might
have knoci^ed her down with a feather when she heard
the shocking news.

One of the servants of the house, Kosa, the pretty
waitress, had seen Mr. Benoir between eight and nine
o'clock on the night of the tragedy. She, Rosa, was
standing under the willow-trees near the terrace, talking
to — to Mr. S. Doolittle, the baker, when Mr. Benoir had
walked past, and leaned over the iron railing, looking at
the water. Mr. Benoir was smoking, and she knew him
very well by the starlight. She was not surprised at see-
ing him there, for he was in the habit of coming ; but
she did wonder a little at his coming late, and had left
Mr. Doolittle, the baker, and ran into the house, lest he
should see her.

Richards, the under-gardener was questioned after Rosa.
Richards said he had been trimming vines all day, and his
work brought him at last, late in the evening, to the old
summer-house. ^It was an out-of-the-way place, where

AFTER THE INQUEST.

263

none of them ever went, being kind of dark and lonesome-
like, shut in among the trees ; but he had gone that even-
ing, intending to come out by the terrace. In passing, he
had opened the door to throw in some tools, and had seen
the deceased lying across the table, as Mr. Sutherland had
found him. He recognised him at once, knowing the
gentleman was in the habit of coming there to read and
smoke — an odd fancy, by the way, he, Richards, had
always thought it. At first, he had supposed him to be
asleep ; but a second glance revealed the blood, the poni-
ard, and the truth. He dropped his tools and ran for it,
and had espied Mr. Sutherland at the stables, and had
brought him at once to the scene of the tragedy.

Mr. Sutherland, very, very white, everybody remarked,
corroborated this. On his way to the stables, he had
seen Richards running from the summer-house, pale and
frightened ; had followed him there at his request, and
seen the murdered man. He had immediate notice sent
• to the proper officials, and had himself examined the
wound. He agreed with the doctor that it was then many
hours old — the blood had ceased to flow, and was partly
congealed on the floor. It was evident he had been struck
from behind by a strong, sure hand ; and the dagger had
gone straight to his heart. Death must have been almost
instantaneous ; but he had been struck again and again
to make sure. He (Mr. Sutherland) knew very little of
the murdered man. He was aware he had been in the
habit of coming to Maple wood for some time past ; he
had asked permission of the gardener, and it had been ac-
corded. Mr. Sutherland had heard he was a native of
Louisiana, and knew no more.

Nothing further could be elicited —nothing to show the
murderous hand that had plunged the steel into his heart.
Mrs. Weldon told them all she knew of him; but that
threw no light on the murder. Mr. Benoir's belongings
were searched; but there was nothing to enlighten them
either. There were letters enough about all manner of

264

A wife's tragedy.

things, but none to serve their purpose. Mrs^. Weldon
gave it as her opinion that the poor fellow had been
stabbed for his money and jewellery. He was known to
be in the habit of late of carrying large sums about him ;
also a valuable watch and diamond ring. None of these
things had been found on the body — money, ring, and
watch were all gone. What other motive but the motive
of gain could any one in St. Mary's have for murdering
an inoffensive stranger ?

There was something in this ; and the perplexed jury,
after a long debate, returned their verdict, that Gaston
Benoir had been wilfully murdered by some person or
persons unknown. Then the coroner and his twelve sat-
ellites adjourned to the dining-room for refreshment, and
shook hands with Mr. Sutherland, and inquired for the
health of Mrs. Sutherland, who was known to be deli-
cate, condoled with him on having his home so foully
desecrated, and departed.

St. Mary's was in a state of unprecedented excitement. *
A murder there was something that had never occurred
within the memory of man, and they could think or talk
of nothing else now. The murdered man became all at
once the theme of every tongue, gentle and simple, far
and wide. The mystery in which the whole was shrouded
deepened the ghostly interest; and every scrap of scanty
information that had come out at the inquest was retold
with appetizing relish. The unknown murderer and the
chosen bride of the dead man shared the public celebrity
— that poor widowed bride-elect, who had shut herself up
in her room when she came out of her hysterics, to do
battle with her grief alone.

Wonderful to relate, the news of Eulalie's flight had
not yet escaped. It was a secret even in the house ; al-
though Hortense the nurse, and Trifine, the lady's-maid,
were beginning to wonder audibly what had become of
their mistress. The household had grown so used of late
to Mrs. Sutherland's passing whole days in the seclusion

AFTER THE INQUEST.

265

of her chamber, that they ceased to comment on her ab-
sence. She was so frail and fragile, so pale and wan, that
they took it for granted that the shock of hearing a
murder had been done at her threshold had been too much
for her feeble nerves, and that she was ill in her room.
Trifine had asked her master if Madam did not require
her, and had been told so curtly " No ! " that she had re-
tired in displeasure until further notice.

Mr. Sutherland, half stupefied by the shocks of his
wife's flight and the discovery of the murder following so
close upon one another, had been utterly unable to dis-
cover anything of that flight, or the direction in which
she had gone. Hortense unsuspiciously answered his in-
direct inquiries, and told him how on that night, about
ten o'clock, her mistress had entered the nursery, where
she and baby slept. Baby and nurse had retired for the
night — baby was sleeping, and nurse was half asleep.
Mrs. Sutherland had bent over the crib, and kissed baby
again and again, and once Hortense had fancied she was
crying ; but, before she could make sure, Madam was gone.
That was all. It was evidently her farewell to her child,
and she had stolen out of the house at night and fled —
where ?

Arthur had had an interview with his cousin in her
room, which she had never left since the news of the
murder. She had dropped into a seat, as if struck down
by a blow, when she first heard it, and she had kept her
room since in a sort of trance of horror. It surprised
every one ; they had known her so cool, so phlegmatic, so
insensible to all shocks, that the manner in which this
affair prostrated her was really astounding. Could Miss
Lucy, the servants whispered, seeing this change in her,
have fallen in love in secret with the handsome stranger ?

Arthur, too benumbed himself to notice anything, had
sought his cousin in her room, and found her sitting with
^ stony face, and a stare of rigid horror in her blue eyes.

266

A wife's tragedy.

Always pale, there was something livid in the face she
turned to him now.

Lucy," he said, hurriedly, " who in the house besides
ourselves knovs/" of my wife's fli — absence ?"

" No one but ourselves," Lucy replied, in a voice that
somehow did not sound like hers.

" Then for Heaven's sake let it be kept a secret for a
day or two, if possible. Offer any plea you choose — ill-
ness, the shock of this horrible tragedy — anything to
keep the servants out of the room and lull suspicion for
the present. Who can tell what construction slanderous
tongues may not put upon her flight, coming as it does at
the same time as the murder ? Will vou do this for me,
Lucy ? "

" If I can. But this concealment cannot last long."

" I do not wish it to. The inquest over, and all the
world may know of it if it chooses. As soon as it ends,
I shall start in pursuit. I shall search to the bounds of
the earth, and find her or never return ! "

He did his best to control himself and speak calmly ;
but the agitation he felt showed itself in the quivering
of his lips and the trembling of his voice, in spite of
every effort.

"Have you no idea," said Lucy, looking at him steadily,
"where she has gone ?"

" None whatever. My poor little girl knew so few —
was intimate with none, and Heaven alone knows what
will become of her. But keep her flight a secret, Lucy.
It would drive me mad to know that my pure darling's
name was on every tongue in St. Mary's, and have it
coupled, perhaps, as it might be, with the dead man's."

Lucy Sutherland shivered, and that look of indescrib-
able horror came into her blue eyes again.

" It was awful — it was awful ! " she said, in a shudder-
ing voice. " Stabbed in the back, and stabbed straight
through the heart ! Arthur ! " she cried, suddenly, " will
I have to appear at the inquest ? Will I have to give
evidence ?"

AFTER THE INQUEST.

267

" Certainly not ! " said her cousin, surprised at her look
of wild affright. " You cannot possibly know anything
of the murder."

" No, no ! " cried Lucy, distractedly, " how should I ? I
— I was only afraid I might have to tell that Eulalle
knew him, and cause her to be summoned. Don't let
them ask for me, Arthur."

" My dear Lucy," said Arthur, more and more surprised
at his calm cousin's very unwonted energy, " you shall
not appear. There is no cause for this alarm, believe
me : there are witnesses enough without ; and whatever
you do, pray, pray never allude to my wife's name in
connection with this man."

Lucy dropped her head on the table, shivering still with
nervous terror.

" Whatever secret existed between my wife and this
dead man," went on Mr. Sutherland, still striving ineffec-
tually to steady his voice, " was one that involved the
honour of others — the dead, perhaps — but not her own.
I need not tell you, Lucy, who knew her so well, that no
creature in this lower world was ever purer, truer, more
loving and gentle, than my poor lost darling. Lucy, you
believe this, do you not ? "

Lucy murmured something, her cousin could not very
clearly make out what, for she never lifted her face from
the table.

" If you will stay in her room, instead of your own,"
said Mr. Sutherland, " the servants, who are ever inquisi-
tive, will think you remain there with her, and not con-
jecture, as they will be sure to do otherwise, about her
being left alone. If Trifine or Hortense want admittance,
you can open the door and dismiss them."

" Yes," said Lucy, without looking up.

" After the inquest," continued her cousin, " I shall quit
Maplewood — forever, perhaps ; certainly until I have
found my wife. Let them say what they please then —
we will both be beyond the reach of their poisonous

268

A wife's tragedy.

tongues. You, my good little steward, will remain here
and take care of the old place as usual, and be a mother
to my child until its own mother returns. Will you not,
Lucy ?"

" I would do anything for you, Arthur."

" Thank you, Lucy. I don't know what we should ever
have done without you — what I should do now. Keep
the secret of my wife's flight, watch over my child when
I am gone, and you will have my everlasting gratitude
and love."

Lucy did not speak — she did not lift her head ; and
Arthur quitted the room. Half an hour after, she shut
herself in Mrs. Sutherland's chamber, and never left it
until the inquest was over. She kept herself locked in,
seeing no one but her cousin, who came up now and then,
looking so haggard and utterly wretched that even Lucy
was shocked.

So it happened — thanks to these precautions — that
Eulalie's flight was still undiscovered this stormy evening
that closed the inquest. Arthur, half mad with impatience
to depart, would have started on his wild-goose chase
within the hour, heedless of closing night and lashing
tempest ; but the shocks of the last two days, the anxiety
of previous weeks, were proving more than he had power
to bear. His head throbbed and a;3hed with a dull, burn-
ing pain that nothing could soothe, and that rendered
him utterly unable to depart that night.

" I shall rest to-night," he thought, pressing his beating
temples between his hands, " and start early to morrow.
My poor little wife, my precious darling — it sets me wild
to think of her wandering alone, friendless — and yet,
what can I do ? "

He sat there alone in the library, now that all was
over, looking into the ruddy fire and seeing horrible pic-
tures in the glowing coals. Pictures of ^a little figure
wandering heart-broken, footsore and weary, frightenei^
among crowds, alone in noisy city streets, unprotected in

AFTER THE INQUEST.

269

the big pitiless world ; worse, perhaps, ill unto death,
among cold, unfeeling strangers, deliriously calling on
him, from whom she had fled, to help her. Arthur Suther-
land groaned aloud in his torture, and covered his face to
shut out the dreadful visions. Where, in all the great,
wide world, should he seek, when to-morrow came ?

He had been sitting in his misery, how long he did not
know, when a knock at the door aroused him.

" Come in," he said, looking up, and Rosa entered.

" Please, Mr. Sutherland, here's Miss Sophie Weldon,
from St. Mary's, and she wants to see you very much."

The sound of Sophie Weldon s name recalled Arthur to
the knowledge that others in the world were as miser-
able as himself. He was hardly surprised to hear that
she was there, although that morning he had been told
she was unable to leave her room.

" Fetch her here at once, poor child ! " said Mr. Suther-
land. And Rosa departed, and, five minutes afterward,
ushered in Miss Weldon, shut the door, and withdrew.

" My poor Sophie — my dear girl ! " Mr. Sutherland
was beginning, advancing toward her ; and there he
stopped in blank dismay. For his visitor stood before
him so deathly white, so awfully corpse-like, that it
might have startled stronger nerves. She was drenched
through and through, splashed with mud ; her hair, her
pretty golden curls, all tossed and disordered about her
face. She stood before him in the doorway, so unlike
herself, so broken, so haggard, so lost-looking that his
heart melted within him.

" My poor, poor Sophie," he said, taking her hands, and
leading her up to the fire. " Heaven knows how sorry I
am for you ! My poor girl, why did they let you come
out such a night ? "

" They don't know I have come," she said, shivering
and crouching in a strange miserable way over the fire ;
" but T heard he was to be buried to-morrow, and I feel as
if I must see him or die ! Oh, Mr. Sutherland, I was tq
have been his wife ! "

270

A wife's tragedy.

She broke into such a dreadful fit of weeping as she
said it, that Arthur quite forgot his own trouble in view
of her passionate despair. There were tears in his eyes
for the first time ; but he could do nothing, only sit there
holding her hand, and repeating tenderly : " My poor
Sophie ! My poor, dear child ! "

The outburst of womanly weeping, violent and hysteri-
cal though it was, did the gird good, for she lifted her
tear-stained face and swollen blue eyes presently to his.

" I could not let you bury him without one look ; and
I have walked all the way from St. Mary's to-night to
see him!"

" Walked!" repeated Mr. Sutherland, horrified.

"Yes," said Sophie, looking down at her soaking gar-
ments. " I stole out ; they would not let me come. Oh,
Mr. Sutherland, you don't know how I loved him ! "

She broke down again in another paroxysm of stormy
tears.

" My poor, poor girl ! " said Mr. Sutherland. " I am
sorrier for you than I can say. Yes, it is very hard
to lose those we love ; and he met with a terrible end
indeed ! "

" Oh, how could she do it ! how could she do it ! " sob-
bed Sophie, passionately ; " how could she kill him ? how
could — oh, Gaston, Gaston ! "

The hysterical sobs grew more hysterical. Mr. Suther-
land sat looking at her, petrified.

" How could she kill him ! " he repeated. " In Hea-
ven's name, Sophie, of whom are you speaking ? "

" That woman !" Sophie gasped, between the choking
sobs. " That tall, dark woman, dressed in mourning ; and
with those dreadful black eyes. Oh, how could she do it
— how could she kill him ? "

" Sophie," said Mr. Sutherland, very gravely, you
must explain this. A tall woman dressed in mourning
kill your lover ! Who was she ? "

I don't know ! I don't know ! She told me her name.

AFTER THE INQUEST.

271

and I forgot it ; but it was Rebecca — something. Gaston
would never tell me anything about her, and she killed
him for revenge. Oh, what shall I do ! what shall I do?"

It was a long time before Mr. Sutherland could get any
coherent explanation from the distressed Sophie ; but at
last, when she had wept until she could weep no more,
he managed to make out the story intelligibly.

" But there is nothing in all this, my dear Sophie," he
said anxiously, " to prove that this woman killed Gaston
Benoir."

"She did — she did! " shrilly cried Sophie ; " she was
fierce and jealous, and there was no one else to do it. Oh,
Mr. Sutherland, if you had seen her eyes that evening —
like two balls of fire — you would know as well as I that
she murdered him! "

"And you don't know her name ? "

" No ; except that it was Rebecca."

The memory of the tall, dark housemaid, who looked s
like an Indian princess, and had fierce black eyes, flashed
through his mind at mention of the name.

" Was it Rebecca Stone ? "

" No," said Sophie, " it was not Stone. I forget it. Oh,
Mr. Sutherland, take me to Gaston, please ; won't you ? "

" Certainly, my dear Sophie," said Mr. Sutherland,
rising ; " come this way."

He led her to the disused room where lay all that re-
mained of her handsome lover. The room was weirdly
lit up by a lamp, and the shadows lurked dark and spec-
tral in the dim corners. The uproar of wind and rain
sounded far louder here than in the sheltered and cur-
tained library ; and the blast went shrieking by like the
cry of an evil spirit. Something solemn and white lay
on a long table, at sight of which Sophie began to tremble
and shrink !

" Courage, Sophie," Arthur whispered ; " don't be
afraid ! "

He drew down the sheet ^nd held up the lamp. In the

272

A wife's tragedy.

still majesty of death the dark, beautiful face was perfect.
It might have been carved in marble, in its infinite repose
and calm. The inconceivable solemnity of that still face,
unmarred by one look of pain, struck with the coldness
of death to the heart of the girl who had loved him. The
room reeled suddenly under her feet, she gave one gasping
cry, and fell back as cold and lifeless as the dead man, in
the arms of Mr. Sutherland.

CHAPTER XXV.

DARK DAYS.

HILE that day of rain and wind darkened down
into rainier and windier night, Lucy Sutherland
sat at the chamber- window of her cousin's wife, looking
blankly out at the storm. That fixed expression of intense
horror dilated her eyes, and blanched her face to an awful
bluish pallor still. Some horrible knowledge that was not
the bare fact of a murder having been done so near, or the
murdered man's body lying below, or the flight of Eulalie,^
must assuredly have come to disturb her immovable calm
like this. She sat looking, not at the stormy twilight, the
drenched earth, and sky of ink, but far off over the top of
the pine woods into the black vacancy beyond. She had
not eaten or drank that day — the horror within her dead-
ened every sense of ordinary need.

Trifine and Hortense had both been at the door, and
been dismissed — their services were not required. Now,,
in the dismal twilight, there was a low knock at the
door.

Lucy arose, and opened it, thinking to see the nurse, or
maid, or perhaps her cousin, but it was none of them.
Rebecca, the housemaid, stood before her like a tall, dark
ghost. If it had been indeed a ghost — the ghost of the
murdered man in the room below — Miss Sutherland could
not have recoiled more palpably, nor with a look of greater
horror. Rebecca came in, shut the door, and stood with
her back to it, while Lucy retreated as far from her as the

274

A wife's tragedy.

room would permit, never taking her wildly-dilated eyes
off her face. a

"Have I frightened you, Miss Sutherland?" Rebecca
said, advancing; but Lucy held out both hands, with a
sort of cry, to keep her off.

" Don't come near me — don't ! " she cried ; " you mur-
deress ! "

"Miss Sutherland!"

"Keep off!" Lucy shrilly repeated, "you horrible wo-
man; if you come one step nearer, I will alarm the house!"

Rebecca stood still, her dark complexion slowly fading
to a dull, sickly yellow ; her eyes in the spectral twilight
fixed on Miss Sutherland with an awfully wolfish glare.

" You devil," Lucy cried, trembling from head to foot in
fear and horror, " in woman's form ! I know what you
have done ! You murderess !" she hissed the word through
her closed teeth. " I am afraid to live under the same roof
with you. If you do not leave this house to-night, I will
denounce you to-morrow morning as the assassin of Gaston
Benoir !"

" Prove it ! " said Rebecca, with a sneering smile. " I
am not afraid of you. Miss Sutherland, and you know it !
Have you forgotten that little compact we made a few
days ago ? No, I see you have not. You call me hard
names, and I don't retaliate ; but don't you go too far —
mind, I warn you ! 1 am not afraid, of you. You will
not denounce me — but pay me what you owe, and I will
leave this house to-night."

Lucy took out her purse, and pushed two or three bills
to the extreme edge of the table. Rebecca took them —
looked to see that they were all right, and put them in
her pocket.

" Thank you, Miss Sutherland," she said^ moving
toward the door ; " and good-bye ! I am not afraid of
you, mind, and I shall not forget the hard names you
have called me. It is not a very pleasant night to be
abroad in, but I dare say I can bear it. Good-bye,

r>AllK BAYS.

275

Miss Sutherland, I wish your cousin joy of his second
wife."

The death's-head stare with which Lucy had been
regarding her relaxed, and Rebecca was gone. As she
vanished in the gloom of the staircase, it seemed to Lucy
that an evil spirit had quitted the room and disappeared
into its native element. She locked the door, and
resumed her seat again by the window, her face hidden
in her hands, miserable and remorseful. Her nature,
warped by jealousy, was not yet wholly bad, since her
conscience stung her so keenly now. She felt as though
she were a murderess herself ; and she would have given
all she had ever so wickedly longed for, to restore her
cousin's wife to her home and Gaston Benoir back to
life.

The dreary twilight blackened entirely out, and night
closed down in windy gloom. She kept no count of the
wretched hours, and she never stirred until there came a
knock at the door. She arose, groped her way to it in
the darkness, and opened it. The hall without was
brightly lighted, and Rosa stood there, flurried and
anxious.

" Oh, Miss Lucy, if you please, Mr. Sutherland says will
you come down to the library. Miss Weldon, she's in a
fainting-fit, and we can't none of us fetch her to."

" Miss Weldon ? " exclaimed Lucy.

" Yes, Miss, from St. Mary's. She came up here, I
heard Master tell cook, to see her dead lover before he
was buried, and fainted stone-cold at the first sight. We
can't fetch her to, and would you come and try, Miss,
master says ? "

Lucy's reply was to brush past the girl, and run down-
stairs. Hortense and Trifine were bending over poor
Sophie, who lay very corpse-like indeed on a lounge. Mr.
Sutherland stood looking on, with a distressed face.

" Try what you can do for her, Lucy," he said ; " all our
efforts to restore her are unavailing."

2?^

A WiFE's TMGEDt.

Cologne, feal volatile, and cold water were fesorted to,
and presently Sophie's blue eyes opened on this mortal
life once more. But she was all wild and incoherent, and
clung to Miss Sutherland in such palpable affright, that it
was long before they could soothe her to calmness.

" Come with me, Sophie," said Lucy, gently. " Come
up- stairs to my room. You are too tired and wet, and
must rest."

Sophie allowed herself to be led away ; and with the
assistance of Rosa, Miss Sutherland got off her wet gar-
ments, and saw her at last safely in bed. Poor Sophie,
quite exhausted, dropped asleep almost immediately, and
Bosa was leaving the room, when Miss Sutherland de-
tained her.

" Rosa, have you seen Rebecca this eveniug ? "
" Yes, Miss," said Rosa, " and she's gone."
" Gone ! "

" Yes, Miss ; and for good I take it ! All her things are
packed up, and she asked William to fetch them to the
station to-morrow. She told William she had got dis-
charged."

" So she has," said Lucy, quietly. " That will do."

Rosa departed ; and Lucy, lowering the light so as not
"to disturb the sleeping girl, went down-stairs again to the
library. She found her cousin walking gloomily up and
'down.

" I wanted you, Lucy," he said. " I shall depart to-
morrow before you are up. You will be good enough
to see that a few indispensable things are packed, as I shall
take as little baggage with me as possible. I shall write
to my mother, and then retire."

Lucy looked at him anxiously ; he was so pale, and
haggard, and hollow-eyed, that she could hardly realize
that a few days had wrought the change.

" Are you sure you will be able to travel to-morrow,
Arthur ? I never saw you looking so ill."

He pressed his hand to his forehead, throbbing, and
beating, and burning hot.

DARK DAYS.

377

" I must go ! " he said. " There is no help for it. I have
been detained here too long already. The Reverend Calvin
Masterson is to see about the burial, and take all trouble
off your hands. I shall go to-morrow if I can stand."

Lucy would have asked where, but her cousin's face
warned her it would be in vain.

" Lest you should feel lonely at first after this terrible
event," Mr. Sutherland went on, still walking up and
down, " I shall ask my mother to return here for a time.
1 shall enter into no explanation as to the cause of my
wife's leaving home — I do not know the cause myself !
I am going to find her ; and if she is on the earth I shall
find her before I come back ! "

Lucy arose.

" Have you any directions to give before you go ? " she
calmly inquired.

" None ; I leave all to you — my good, prudent, little
cousin. God bless you, Lucy ! Pray for my success when
I am gone."

He wrung her hand, and let her go ; and Lucy Suther-
land went slowly up-stairs, feeling as though that blessing
were a burning curse.

But Mr. Sutherland did not depart on his long journey
to-morrow ; for when to-morrow came, he was raving and
tossing deliriously in a burning fever.

He had sat up and endeavoured to write to his mother,
the words swimming in a hot mist before his eyes ; and
he had to go to bed with that burning beating in his
temples worse.

And so, next morning, when the time for starting came,
he was raving incoherently of his lost wife and the mur-
dered man, and the journey was indefinitely postponed.

Lucy Sutherland, as thin as a shadow herself, took her
place by the bedside, and became the tenderest and most
devoted of nurses. She hardly ever left him night or
day, and no man was ever nursed by mother or wife with
more loving care than Arthur by this quiet cousin.
R

278

A wife's tragedy.

Early in the first day of Mr. Sutherland's illness, the
Reverend Calvin Masterson, accompanied by the under-
taker, and two or three of the village officials, came to
Maplewood ; and the mortal remains of Gaston Benoir
were hidden beneath the coffin-lid. A crowd of idlers
straggled after the hearse as it lumbered slowly along to
St. Mary's Cemetery.

There was but one mourner, poor Sophie Weldon, who
was driven in one of the Maplewood carriages, to see her
lover laid in the ground. Only one mourner, but Sophie's
tears never ceased to flow all the time of that dreary
drive. The weather was as gloomy as the lonely funeral
cortege ; a dull, blankly-hopeless day of fog, and mist, and
drizzle, and cold around.

" Ashes to ashes — dust to dust," read the Reverend
Calvin Masterson, shivering in the raw wind, and then
the sods went rattling down on the coffin-lid ; and in ten
minutes it was all over, and every body was going home
but Sophie, who knelt down by the new-made grave, and
laid her poor, tear-stained face on the wet grass. It was
all over — and the man who had been the terror and blight
of Gustavus Rohan's life, and that of his granddaughter,
was harmless enough now in his last, long home.

But the gloom of the murder hung over the old stone
mansion still — its awful shadow brooded darkly yet
around the place. The spirit of the dead man seemed to
haunt the ghostly rooms, so grand, so lonely, so deserted.
Not a servant in the house would have entered the room
where he had lain, for a fortune, after nightfall ; and even
in broad daylight, they hurried by with paling cheeks
and frightened glances. Maplewood had gained all it
wanted to make it perfect — it had tecome a haunted house.

The story of the murder was not the only astounding
theme St. Mary's had to gossip about ; for the flight of
Eulalie was known to every man, woman and child in
the place. Lucy was coldly reticent ; her own opinion
was, she told Mr. Masterson and Colonel Madison, that

DARK DAYS.

279

Mrs. Sutherland's mind was disordered, and had been for
some time. But St. Mary's did not believe that any more
than Mr. Masterson or Colonel Madison did, and began
coupling in whispers her name with the name of the dead
man. Somehow, it came out that Mr. Benoir's diamond
ring had been given him by Mr. Sutherland's wife. It
came out, too, that there had been stolen meetings by
night in the grounds; that they had been in the old
summer-house together on the evening of the tragedy ;
and that Mrs. Sutherland had run away that very night.
How it was all discovered, no one seemed to know ; but
it was on every tongue, and dark suspicions were begin-
ning to be whispered ominously about. Lucy, sitting in
her cousin's darkened room, heard all ; but her pale, quiet
face told no tales. Whether she exulted in her hidden
heart, whether she was repentant or remorseful, none
knew but Heaven and herself, She kept her ceaseless
watch by her cousin's sick bed, by night and by day,
never wearying, never flagging, listening with that pale,
still face to his wild ravings, and bathing his flushed face
and burning hands. His talk was all rambling and in-
coherent— now of Eulalie — now of Isabel — now of his
schoolboy-days — and now of Lucy herself, his good,
patient, kind, little cousin. It was weary, weary work
sitting through the long days and longer nights listening
to his idle babbling, but Lucy loved him, and never de-
serted her post.

A week later, and Mrs. Sutherland, Augusta, and Philip
arrived, in a state of hopeless bewilderment and conster-
nation. What did it all mean ? A murder committed —
Eulalie run away — Arthur down with brain-fever ! Mrs.
Sutherland poured out a torrent of questions before she
had been five minutes in her son's sick-room.

Lucy's armour of reticence was not to be broken down.
Grudingly enough, coldly enough, she told what she could
not help telling, and no more. Yes, it was all quite true,
the murder, the flight, and the illness ; but how they were

280

A wife's tkagedy.

connected with each other, she could not tell. She cer-
tainly believed Eulalie knew Gaston Benoir intimately —
the man wore her ring openly, and she had been seen to
meet him by night, and by stealth, in the grounds. She
had been with him the night of the murder and of her
flight, and, taking all things into consideration, it was
really very strange, but she positively knew nothing.
Mrs. Arthur Sutherland kept her own secrets, and kept
them well — her husband knew no more than they did.
Eulalie had fainted the first time she saw Gaston Benoir
— the mention of his name in the most casual way had
always been sufficient to throw her into a state of the
greatest agitation. Beyond these facts, she knew nothing.

Mrs. Sutherland listened, pale, indignant, haughty.
Augusta, in open-eyed wonder. Philip Sutherland, mood-
ily silent.

" The man you say was young and handsome ? " Mrs.
Sutherland asked, with a frown.

"Eminently handsome, and about thirty, I should judge!"

" There is no trusting these foreigners ! " said Augusta,
with a spiteful remembrance of the woman who had once
been her rival ; " I dare say this handsome Louisianian
had been a lover of hers before any of us saw her ! "

Arthur's mother took the post of head nurse at once,
and Lucy was deposed. After the first day, the name of
the absent wife was by tacit consent avoided by all. If
she had been dead and lying in the church-yard, her
memoi^y could not have been more a thing of the past
than it was. September glowed itself out in the sunny
summer sky, and October, bright and brown, was there
before Arthur Sutherland came slowly out of the weary,
delirious dreamland in which he had been straying so
long. Life and death had had a hard struggle for victory,
but he was passing from the dark valley in the end. Very
slowly, wan and wasted ; too languid even to speak at
first, but surely getting better. When he could speak, his
first question was of his wife. It was Lucy he asked,
sitting at his pillow.

DARK DAYS.

281

" No," Miss Sutherland said ; " we have heard nothing
whatever, as yet. Philip left here a month ago to search
for her, but all his searching has been fruitless ! "

To his mother or sister, Arthur never spoke of his lost
wife. He felt instinctively that they believed her guilty,
and he was too weak, and tired, and spiritless, to enter
into explanation or defence. But his mind rarely wan-
dered from her. He lay in his darkened chamber, and
thought of her through the long days and longer nights ;
thought of her, poor little beauty ! as he might have
thought of her dead — sadly, lovingly, forgivingly.

His convalescence was wearisomely slow. October was
at its close before he could cross the threshold, and
breathe the fragrant sea air once more. Such a pale sha-
dow of the handsome Arthur Sutherland of other days !
such a wreck of his bright young manhood ! such a weak,
broken, saddened man ! He wandered up and down the
maple-groves, he loitered on the grassy terrace, looking
with wistful, dreary eyes at the silvery horizon far away,
and dreaming of the days when he had lingered here
with his dark-eyed darling at his side. How long ago it
seemed — years and years instead of months ; and she had
vanished out of his life, and left him a desolate and care-
worn man.

Philip Sutherland, faithful to the memory of the wo-
man he had once loved, was still on the search, and still
in vain. He wrote regularly to Maplewood, but his letters
brought no news of the lost wife. If the earth had
opened and swallowed her, she could not have more com-
pletely vanished from human ken.

One dreary November evening, Arthur sat alone in
the library, watching the short day fade out of the leaden
sky. The view from the window was desolation itself,
the trees holding out gaunt, stripped arms, that rattled
like dry bones in the shrill blast. The dead leaves
whirled away in crazy circles, and the gray sea swept
moaning up on the grey sands under the low-lying gray

282

A wife's tragedy.

sky. It was all desolate — as desolate as his own heart,
and he turned away with a long, weary sigh, as the door
opened and his stately mother came in.

" A letter for you, Arthur," she said, holding one out.

" From Philip ?" he eagerly asked.

" No ; from a woman, I should judge from the writing,
and post-marked New York."

The letter was in a hand unfamiliar to Mr. Sutherland.
EQs mother stood before the fire, looking thoughtfully
into the red coals while he read. Presently, a cry, sharp
and sudden, made her turn round; her son, with a wildly-
startled face, was staring at it with dilated eyes.

" What is it, Arthur ? " she asked in alarm. Any news
of—"

She stopped with the name on her lips, as Arthur arose
impetuously.

" Where is Lucy ? " he demanded, crumpling the letter
in his hand.

"In the dining-room. Arthur — "

But Arthur was gone. Striding straight to the dining-
room, he found Lucy, sewing by the last rays of the day-
light. She lifted her calm eyes as he excitedly held out
the letter.

" Read it, Lucy ! " he said. " I know it is false in what
it says of you ; but read it, and tell me if we have indeed
found the murderer of Gaston Benoir ! "

Lucy's fixedly-pale face could grow no more colourless
than it habitually was ; but the hand she held out for the
letter trembled like a leaf, Arthur stood looking at her
with eager eyes while she read.

" Arthur Sutherland, Esq. — Sir : — Having placed
a safe distance between you and myself, and being about
to start for a foreign land, I may safely make my last
dying speech and confession. You would like to know
who murdered Gaston Benoir, wouldn't you ? Well, you
shall ! I did it — yes, I — and I exult in the act ! I stab-

DARK DAYS.

bed him that night in the summer-house ; and I robbed
him of your wife's ring, his watch, and five thousand dol-
lars, which little fortune your pretty wife had just given
him. I did it, Mr. Sutherland, and I would do it again.
He deceived me from first to last 1 I swore revenge, and
I kept my word ! Do you think I was going to be cast
off and flung aside with scorn for that little insipid non-
entity, Sophie Weldon ? Gaston Benoir should have
known me better ; but he was a villain and a liar, and he
has paid the penalty ! Do they suspect your wife — your
pretty little frightened black-eyed wife ? I know one
who does not — that sleek white cat your cousin, Miss Lucy
Sutherland. She could have told you all from the first,
who avenged herself on Gaston Benoir ; but she didn't,
did she ? Do you suppose it was for love of me, or for
hatred of your wife, that she kept my secret ? You don't
know that she did hate her, do you ? Any more than
you know she was ever madly in love with yourself ?
No, and I dare say you won't believe it now ; but it is
true nevertheless. Make her Mrs. Arthur Sutherland
Number Two, and she will have the desire of her life at
last.

" Now, Mr. Sutherland, as a friend, I advise you not to
waste time and money searching for me. You won't find
me 1 When you discover last year's snow — last summer's
partridges — then you may look for

" Rebecca Isaacs, alias Stone."

CHAPTER XXVI.

FOUND AND LOST.

LUCY looked up from the letter, her blue eyes flash-
ing, her thin lips trembling. Once, twice, she
essayed to speak, but rage and bitter mortification choked
her voice. To the unspeakable consternation of her cousin,
she crumpled up the letter and flung it across the room,
and, covering her face with both hands, burst out into a
passionate fit of crying. Arthur stood confounded. He
had expected to see her horrified, indignant, angry, per-
haps, but not like this. He had never seen Lucy — calm,
placid Lucy — weep before ; and now her sobs seemed to
rend and tear her frail body with their strength. It was
such another outburst as had happened once, years be-
fore, in her mother's house — a wild tempest of tears.
Perhaps she had never wept since then ; but the humilia-
tion was so bitter, the mortification so keen, that she could
not have stayed those tempestuous sobs to have saved her
life.

" Lucy, Lucy!" Arthur cried, " for Heaven's sake, don't !
You distress me more than I have words to say ! Lucy,
my dear cousin — "

She sprang to her feet like a tigress — dashing fiercely
aA^xiy the tears from her flashing eyes, showing him her
real nature for the first time.

" How dare you speak to me ! " she exclaimed. " How
dare you, Arthur Sutherland ! How dare you insult me
by showing me that horrible, lying letter ! How dare
you do it ! "

" My dear Lucy—"

FOUND AND LOST.

285

" Don't speak to me ! Don't call me your dear Lucy !
Arthur Sutherland, I hate you ! I hate you ! and I will
never sleep another night under your roof."

He was standing between her and the door, and she
thrust him aside with a frantic violence that made him
reel, and rushed out of the room. Mrs. Sutherland, in a
state of pale and haughty amaze, was in the door-way,
but Lucy flung past her quite frantically.

" My dear Arthur," said his mother, entering, " what
on earth does this all mean ? "

Arthur looked at her, still with that utterly confounded
face.

" Is that Lucy ? " he cried, staring hopelessly after her.
" Has she gone mad ? "

" It looks exceedingly like it ! " said Mrs. Sutherland,
frowning. " What have you been doing to her, Arthur ? "

Arthur put the old housemaid's letter in his mother's hand.
Mrs. Sutherland read it with wide-open eyes of wonder.

" Good Heavens, Arthur ! what a horrible letter ! Who
is Rebecca Isaacs ? "

Arthur related all that he knew of the stately house-
maid with the flery black eyes.

" I thought from the first that she was no ordinary ser-
vant," he said, " but this confession makes her out a devil.
As to what it says of poor Lucy, of course that is all spite.
She was dismissed, I believe, and this is her revenge."

" Spite ! " said Mrs. Sutherland, all her old dislike of her
niece-in-law strong within her. " One part of the letter
is as true as the other. It was the consciousness of guilt
that made that little hypocrite fly out at you in this re-
volting manner. The vile, disgraceful creature — " But
her son interrupted her with a look of pain.

" Hush, mother. Poor Lucy, don't think so ill of her,
What had I better do with this letter? "

" Show it to the coroner, of course ! and let detectives
be set on the track of the murderess at once."

286

A wife's tkagedy.

"But the letter involves Lucy — " Mr. Sutherland
hesitated.

"What of that ! " said his mother, sharply. " Is Lucy's
good name of more importance than that of your wife ?
Don't you know she is suspected of the murder ? Don't
be absurd ? Drive to St. Mary's immediately, and do as
I tell you!"

Mr. Sutherland obeyed ; going up to Lucy's room first,
however, and doing his utmost to obtain an entrance.
Lucy was obdurate ; her door was locked, and she would
neither open it nor answer him ; so there being no help
for it, he drove oft' to St. Mary's to follow his mother's
counsel.

The matter involved some hours ; it was very late when
he returned, but his mother was waiting up to tell him
Lucy had gone.

" Gone ! " Arthur repeated, aghast.

" Yes, bag and baggage, and Maplewood is well rid of
her ! There ! don't talk to me about her. I have no pa-
tience to think of her. Go to bed, you look done to death."

Arthur's pained face showed what he felt, but he said
little. He had made up his mind to start next day on
his long-deferred journey in search of his wife, and he
obeyed his mother's directions, and retired at once.

Mrs. Sutherland's expostulations next day were in vain ;
her son would go, and went, and she and Augusta were
left in desolate November to mope their lives away in the
dreary solitude of the forsaken old homestead.

What a wild-goose chase it was — wandering hither and
thither in search of the poor little lost wife. Such a
weary, fruitless, dispiriting search, with no more trace of
her to be found than if she had never existed. November
wore dismally out. December came, and Christmas was
near. Mr. Sutherland was in Montreal — some faint hope
that Eulalie might have gone to her old convent home
had taken him there ; but the hope, like all his other
hopes, was delusive. He was sitting gloomily in his room,

FOUND AND LOST.

287

watching the passers-by on the street, when, to his aston-
ishment, Philip Sutherland walked in.
" Phil," he said, " you here ? "

" I have come after you," Philip said gravely. " Your
mother is very ill — a severe cold and inflammation of the
lungs. You must return to Maplewood at once ! "

Nothing less than his mother's danger could have in-
duced Arthur to go home. But there was no hesitating
in such a case, and before evening the train that bore
them on their homeward way was flying along through
the snowy valley of old Vermont.

To Arthur's great relief, his mother's illness had taken
a favourable turn since Philip's departure, and a week
after their arrival she was out of danger.

" There is no longer need of my presence here," Arthur
said to his cousin, when the crisis was over. *• I shall
leave again to-morrow."

The two young men sat in the library before the blaz-
ing fire. It was a snowy evening, and piercingly cold ;
Maplewood lay in a ghostly shroud of white — ^the wintry
blast shook the old house to its foundations.

" So soon," said Philip. " I — I though you would have
stayed till after Christmas."

He seemed so weary as he said it, that Arthur looked
at him in surprise.

" Why should I stay ? There is no need of my presence
here, and I shall never give up my search for my lost wife
while life lasts."

" Well," said Philip, " it sfeems despicable, I dare say, to
speak of one's self and one's hopes when other people are
so miserable ; but if you go away so soon, there is no
help for it. Arthur, you're a good fellow, I know, and —
and— in short," said Dr. Sutherland, desperately, " will
you give me Augusta ? "

Imagine Arthur Sutherland's surprise. Imagine Philip
Sutherland's flood of explanations. He had held out long,
but Augusta had brought him to it at last.

288

A wife's tragedy.

" She's such a good little thing," Philip said, " and wil-
ling to wait for me half a dozen years, if necessary. She
does not mind my being poor ; and I trust you won't
either, Arhur, old boy. I dare not speak to my stately
aunt. I should be annihilated at the first word ; but if
you are agreeable, I won't despair."

" My dear Phil ! " said Arthur, very much surprised, " I
give you my word, I never dreamt of such a thing. If
Augusta be willing, I certainly have no objection ; but
really this is about the last idea that would have come
into my head. Why, Augusta is perpetually quarrelling
with you."

" Yes, I know," said Doctor Sutherland, ruefully, " she
is a little cantankerous, is gusty at times ; but somehow I
have grown used to it, and I don't think I should enjoy
life without it. So it's all right, Arthur, old boy."

Arthur held out his hand.

" You have my best wishes ! I shall use my influence
with higher powers too, and you may not have to wait
very long after all."

Philip shook his cousin's hand with an energy that told
volumes, and then hurried off to relate the good news to
expectant Augusta.

Left alone, Arthur drew closer to the fire, and fell into
his old habit of staring at the coals. There was an op-
pression on his mind that night, heavier even than the
oppression that never left it now. A dim foreshadowing
of some trouble, darker than any that had come yet,
weighed like lead on his hea^. He sat alone there by
the fire, that vague oppression deepening and darkening
with every passing hour, until he could endure it no longer.

He walked to the window and looked out. It had
ceased snowing, and the stars were clearing sharp and
bright through the blue sky. A cold, new moon loomed
ghostl}'- in the snow, and the skeleton trees rattled their
bare arms in the piercing wintry wind.

" A cold, clear night," thought Mr. Sutherland ; " I shall
have a fine day for my journey to-morrow."

FOUND AND LOST.

289

With these words in his mind he was turning away from
the window, when he suddenly stopped.

One of the men servants, crossing the belt of snowy
ground between the trees, and directly in front of the
window, struck against something lying half-buried in the
snow, and fell. Picking himself up again, he stooped to
examine the object. A second after, with a yell that
might have been heard half a mile off, he sprang back,
and fled like a madman.

Mr. Sutherland opened the window, stepped out, and
confronted him as he turned the corner of the house, with
a face as white as the snowy ground, and with dilated
eyes of horror. The hand of his master on his collar
brought him up, all standing.

" What's the matter, Richard's ? " asked Mr. Sutherland,
quietly. " What was that you fell over ? "

" A dead woman," cried Richards, with chattering teeth.
" Good Lord, preserve us! That's the second I've found !"

" A dead woman ! " said Arthur, recoiling; " what do
you mean ? "

" Frozen to death, sir," said Richards ; " you can look
for yourself."

Arthur dropped the man's collar, and strode through
the glazed snow to where the dark object lay. A woman
— her garments fluttering, where they were not frozen,
in the wind — a woman, lying on her face, as she must
have falllen. Richards stood behind his master, shaking
more with fear than cold.

" Help me carry her into the house," said Mr. Suther
land ; " she may not be quite dead yet."

It was no easy task to lift her, though she was small,
her di'ess and shawl — poor and thin both — were so frozen
with the snow ; but they did manage it at last. Very
gently Arthur raised her and turned her face, so that the
cold, pale moonbeams fell upon it. Oh ! that sight !
With a dreadful cry, that Richards never forgot, she fell
a stiff* and frozen corpse from his arms.

"Great God! Eulalie!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

AFTER EIGHT YEARS.

IN the parlour- window of a Broadway hotel a gentleman
sat one May morning looking very thoughtfully out
at the crowded thoroughfare. Up and down, up and
down, in the bright sunshine, carlessly the tide of human
life flowed, an ever-shifting panorama.

The gentleman was not old — not much over thirty;
but there were threads of gray in his hair, and deep-plowed
lines marking his face ; a tall and distinguished man, with
a certain militaire air about him, bronzed and bearded
under a Southern sun. The sun-burnt face was very
grave, and his eyes had a misty far-off look, as if he were
gazing more into the dim past than the sunlit street out-
side his window. He was thinking so deeply that he did
not hear his door open, nor a visitor enter, until a hand
fell on his shoulder, and a familiar voice sounded on his
ear:

" Arthur Sutherland, turn round and greet an old
friend."

The sunburnt gentleman started to his feet, and cor-
dially grasped the extended hand.
" Phil, my dear old boy ! "

That was all ; but they shook hands with a vigour that
often speaks more than words ; and there was something
like tears in Phil. Sutherland's eyes.

" It is good to see your honest face after three years'
absence," he said, laughing, to hide it. " I don't know

AFTER EIGHT YEARS.

291

but your military honours, colonel, may have made you
forget country-cousins ; but, seeing your name among the
arrivals, I ran the risk."

" I should think so ! How is my mother and Augusta,
and the little people ? "

" Never better ! Eulalie has grown out of all know-
ledge ; and your namesake, Master Arthur, does his best
to keep pace with her."

" And how does doctoring thrive in St. Mary's, Phil ? "

" Well, on the whole, it is not to be complained of.
There are always measles, and hooping-cough, and croup,
and scarlatina, and rheumatism, and other little things of
that sort, to keep a man busy. I can't complain, really."

" You cold-blooded rascal ! How does the old place
look ? "

" Capitally ! and so does Augusta ; weighs one hundred
and fifty, if she does an ounce. I am up on business for
a day or two, and return to-morrow. You will accom-
pany me, I hope, or you need never look to be forgiven,
in this world or the next ! "

" Perhaps I shall," said Arthur. " I have one or two
friends to call on, and a little business to transact."

" By-the-bye," said Doctor Phil., carelessly, " I was
speaking to one of your friends ^^esterday — a very old
one, too ! Mrs. Captain Anderly — Miss Isabel Yansell
that was. Perhaps you have forgotten her ? "

" No," said Arthur, not looking at him. " She is well ? "

"Quite well, and as young and pretty as ever; and
blushed, she did, I assure you, at the mention of your
name ! "

" Bah ! Captain Anderly was a fine fellow. I knew
him well, and was truly grieved to hear of his death. Is
it medical business that has brought you to New York,
Phil ? "

Phil, explained, and they fell into desultory talk. Pres-
ently the doctor rose to take his leave.

" It reminds me of ten years ago, Arthur," he said.

292

A wife's tragedy.

" Do you recollect the day I came to see you here, after
your return from Europe, and we talked of going back
to Maplewood together ? "

" Yes," Arthur said, very gravely ; and Phil., recollect-
ing himself, blushed, inwardly, at his own stupidity.

" Then you return with me to-morrow to Maplewood ? "
he said, taking his hat.

Arthur replied in the affirmative, and Phil, departed.

Once more alone^ Arthur's thoughts went back into the
train Philip's entrance had disturbed.

" Ten years ago." No need of Phil's, reminding him of
that. Ten years ago he had sat looking out on sunlit Broad-
way, and dreaming of Isabel Vansell's azure eyes and
golden hair. Ten years ago, and the woman who had been
his fate was all unknown. Such an enchanted, blissful,
story, and tragical time as followed. Eight years ago, and
his little Creole wife's unhappy story was ended, and she
lay quietly to rest in St. Mary's Cemetery. He had been
a wanderer over the world since, he had faced death and
Southern bullets many a time, but that was all ended, too.
And now he sat here, as he had sat ten years ago, looking
out on the same men and women, perhaps, as if the dead
decade had been only a dream. As on that day, Isabel
Vansell's image was uppermost in his mind. The fair,
serene face, the seraphic eyes, soothed him only to think of.
She, too, had wedded — she, too, was wido wed . Had the time
come for the words left unsaid ten years ago to be said now ?

Half an hour after, Arthur Sutherland was ringing the
door-bell of Mrs. Anderly's house. Mrs. Anderly was at
home, and in the morning-room, and the servant ushered
him in. Had the past came back to her, too ? She was
standing as he had left her — standing ten years ago, in the
halo of sunshine, among her geraniums and canary-birds.
Not a day older, not a whit less lovely — the milk-white
skin smooth as satin, the rose-bloom unfaded, the tinseled
hair as bright. His dove-eyed Madonna — his stainless
ideal. Only not robed in Madonna white — widow's weeds

AFTER EIGHT YEARS.

293

trailed the rich carpet, and he was speaking to Mrs. An?
derly, not Miss Vansell.

They were very quiet, both — whatever they felt, no out-
ward sign testified, as they talked orthodox commonplace
platitudes. Arthur Sutherland had faced the Southern
bullets unflinchingly, but he found it hard to face his blue-
eyed ideal, and say the words that filled his heart. All the
old love came back, as if he had indeed left her yesterday ;
as if those ten dead years had never come between them.
He said so at last.

" How familiar it all is, Isabel — ah ! I beg your pardon,
Mrs. Anderly." The rose-bloom brightened on the pearly
cheeks.

" Call me Isabel," she said, softly ; " I like it best. Do
you mean this room ? "

" This room — the flowers and the birds, and you Isabel."

Her hands, lying idly in her lap, began to flutter.

" Do you not find me changed ? " she asked, not look-
ing at him.

" Only in this," touching the black dress ; " you wore
white when last we parted."

Her head dropped, and the rosy light was at its bright-
est. The fluttering hands were clasped in his.

" May I say to-day what I meant to say then, Isabel —
that I love you ? "

The words were spoken, and the fluttering hands were
not withdrawn. He was answered.

" Oh, Isabel," he said ; " if I had spoken ten years ago,
what would your answer have been ? "

" What it is now," she softly replied ; " yes ! "

Then there was another interval of silence, but silence
was better than talk just then. Presently, Arthur bent
over the golden head nestling on his shoulder.

" And Captain Anderly, my dearest ? "

" My husband was very good to me," she answered,
simply ; " and loved me very much. I was truly sorry
when he died ! But, Arthur — "
s

294

A wife's tragedy.

" Well, darling."

" They say " — with a little tremor of the voice — " you
loved your wife so very, very much, that — ^that — "

" Well, Isabel, you are not jealous, I hope."

" Oh, no ! but perhaps you will never love as you did
her ! "

He stooped and kissed her.

" I shall love you with all my heart ! but, Isabel, pro-
mise me one thing ! "
" Anything, Arthur."

" That you will never have any secrets from me ! A
hidden secret that should have been told me was the
cause of all the misery of my married life. If I had only
been told it the tragical story you have heard might never
have been ! Some day, when you are my wife, you shall
know all — there need be no concealment from you. Pro-
mise, Isabel ! "

" I promise, dear Arthur ! "

" And you will come back with me to Maple wood —
when ? "

" Oh, I don't know ! Some time this summer, if you
like."

" Not so long. Say in a month, Isabel ! "
" But, Arthur—"

" Why, dearest," he pleaded ; " why need we wait !
Fate has separated us a long time, and life is too short to
be spent in waiting. I want to take you to my old home,
where I have been so supremely happy and supremely
miserable. Let me take you to Maple wood — my love —
m}^ wife, before the May moon wanes."

And so it was settled, and there was a quiet wedding
in New York ; and early in June, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur
Sutherland went down to the old homestead, which he
had left eight years ago, and never seen since.

Mrs. Sutherland, Senior, and Doctor and Mrs. Philip
Sutherland, were there to greet them. There were the
" little people" too. Dr. Phil.'s two flaxen-haired, blue-

AFTER EIGHT YEARS.

295

eyed boys, plump and rosy like mamma, and a shy, still,
little dark fairy, with a moonlight sort of face, looking
out of tangled black ringlets, and a pair of wonderful
black eyes — Eulalie Sutherland — the living image of her
beautiful dead mother. A pale, melancholy child — heiress
of fabulous wealth, owner of wondrous beauty; but ^
pensive, subdued little creature, fragile as a lily, Isabel
Sutherland drew the shrinking child towards her, and
stooping to kiss her, something fell on her face and wet
it.

That tear — that smile which followed, made them
mother and daughter at once.

" Isabel," Arthur said, " I have something to tell you —
have I not ? "

His wife looked up from her embroidery with a smile.
They were sitting together alone, in the misty June twi-
light, at the open drawing-room window, about a week af-
ter their arrival.

" The story of poor Eulalie's secret, which I never knew
myself until she lay dead. Isabel, I can tell you that
secret in four words — she was a slave ! "

" A — what ? " repeated Isabel, vaguely.

" A slave ; the daughter of a slave mother, and exposed
to the same fate herself. This is how it was : — Gustavus
Rohan, her grandfather, a wealthy Louisiana planter, had
one son, Arthur, who fell madly in love, when very young,
with a lovely quadroon girl, the property of a neighbour-
ing planter, between whom and Mr. Rohan there had ex-
isted a bitter feud for years. The quadroon girl was the
pet of her mistress, and as educated and refined as the
lady's own daughter might have been — but what of that ?
she was a slave. The father of Arthur Rohan forbade
his son's visiting Eulalie Benoir, under pain of being
disinherited, and the result was a secret marriage and
an elopement. The planter who had lost his pretty
slave, the father who had lost his son, made every effort

296

A wife's tragedy.

to trace the fugitives, but in vain. Nothing was heard
of either for upward of a year, when Mr. Rohan re-
ceived a letter from Cuba. It was written by his son's
wife, and full of sorrowful tidings. The young husband
was dead — she believed herself to be dying, and she
wrote to beg him to forgive his dead son, and protect
that son's infant child. Mr. Rohan departed for Cuba
at once, in time to see the poor mother die, and receive
from her arms the black-eyed baby that became the idol
of his life. He would not return to his Louisianian
home, lest his enemy there should discover that the child
he loved already was the daughter of his runaway slave.
So in Cuba he remained, and there Eulalie grew into the
lovely creature whose picture you have seen, whose living
image you behold in her child. There she grew up, to be
idolized with such entire love, such absorbing devotion,
as few in this world ever knew. That very intensity of
love made the old man's misery. Day by day the fear
grew upon him that he was destined to lose her too, the
idol of his heart, and by a fate worse than death. She
would be torn from him, she, the child of a slave, and a
slave herself, was entirely at the mercy of his relentless
enemy if discovered. There was but one chance of that
discovery, and that was through Eulalie's own uncle, her
mother's brother and only relative. He was several years
younger than that unfortunate young mother, most crafty,
cruel, spiteful, and malicious. He had all his master's
hatred of the Rohans — aggravated tenfold by his sister's
flight. He never believed in her marriage, of which
there was no proof ; and by some means or other — per-
haps his sister had written to him also — he discovered
that she had left a child, a daughter. That was enough,
He was on her track from that moment. To discover that
daughter, and revenge himself on the Rohans by tearing
her from her grandfather, and reducing her to the same
level as himself, became the baneful object of his life. Mr.
Rohan knew all this — Eulalie knew nothing of her dire

AFTER EIGHT YEARS. 297

story : she thought, as we all did, that her birthplace had
been Louisiana, her mother a French Creole lady. Her
grandfather never undeceived her until she was my be-
trothed wife, and the shock struck her down like a thun-
derbolt. She was taken to Cuba. I followed her — and,
half a year after, still ignorant of the secret, I married
her. What followed, you have already heard. Gaston
Benoir found her out here, and began his work of ven-
geance. On the eve of telling me all, and afterward, I
have no doubt, taking steps to tear her from me, he was
struck down himself by a woman he had deceived; and
with him died the fear of Eulalie's life. But not in time
to save her — she had fled already, and all search for her
was vain. Her tragical end you know ; and in a letter
to me hidden in the breast of her dress, I read what I
have told you. Where she had been in the interval of
her flight, I have never discovered. Wherever she was,
and it could not have been far distant, she must have
wandered Torth in an almost dying state — delirous, per-
haps— and fallen down where we found her. What I
suffered, Isabel, after that homble night, is known only
to heaven and myself."

Two soft arms went round his neck, two loving lips
touched his.

" Dear Arthur," the sweet low voice of his wife said,
" it is all over — let us forget it from this hour. You
have a Eulalie on earth and a Eulalie in heaven ; and re-
member, ' After tears and weeping He poureth in joyful-
ness!'"

THE END.

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